Courageous Woman: Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001)
by Julianne Wiley (a.k.a. Juli Loesch)
Anscombe as a young woman
In the fall of 1939, shortly after Great Britain declared war on Germany, the Royal Air Force was openly promoting a counter-city bombing strategy against Germany. They were preparing to carpet bomb entire cities. Their first target in each city would be the city water-pumping stations, and then they would wipe out, not just the military assets, but all its civilian inhabitants. The cities of Dresden, Cologne, and Hamburg were to be bombed in this way. Elizabeth Anscombe and a fellow student, barely out of their teens, wrote, printed, and started distributing a brief, powerful essay entitled “The Justice of the Present War Examined.” Not on the basis of pacifism, but by the application of traditional Just War principles, she argued that the British government’s plan to incinerate large numbers of civilians by means of indiscriminate obliteration bombing was not an act of Just War but an act of murder.
But before Anscombe’s essay could be widely disseminated, her own bishop, the Bishop of Birmingham, told her to withdraw it from publication. He said it was not the job of undergraduates to judge their nation’s military policy, and that she had a lot of learning to do before she could make complex judgments. She agreed that she had much learning to do, and she withdrew the pamphlet. But it is her words, rather than those of her bishop, which remain in our memory and were later echoed by the Second Vatican Council.
Anscombe’s responsibilities as a philosophy professor at Oxford in the 1950s did not include teaching ethics, which was covered by her friend Philippa Foot. But at one point Foot took a sabbatical and asked Anscombe to fill in for her. When Anscombe started to organize her thoughts by reading the usual texts of modern moral philosophy she was flabbergasted.
Despite the differences between them, all the 20th century authors she encountered shared one thing in common: they had no moral absolutes. None. There were no actions that could be ruled out if you were aiming at a good enough result. Not rape, not torture, not abortion, not murder. They said it could all be justified by circumstances. And this was an absolute break with 20 centuries of Western Civilization, with its basis in Judeo-Christian moral teaching, and even a break from the teachings of Aristotle and the greats of pagan Greek and Roman civilization.
Anscombe knew this was wrong. Two years previously, in 1956, Oxford University had decided to grant an honorary degree to Harry Truman, who, as President of the United States, had been responsible for the deliberate massacre of hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She contested this honorary degree, but she was told that she was the only one who found it objectionable. She forced a vote, but only four faculty members were willing to say that a man who authorized the deliberate killing of innocent human beings ought not to be given public honors.
Anscombe’s reflections on moral absolutes developed into her 1958 paper “On Modern Moral Philosophy.” She boldly challenged the sheer relativism of almost all 20th century moral philosophers. Standing practically alone against the entire academic philosophical establishment, she defined, described, and pulled apart “consequentialism,” the view that there are no acts, no matter how evil, which cannot be justified if one is aiming for good consequences.
Although Oxford was still, in the 1960s, a place of considerable outward conventionality, it was inwardly shaken by the moral confusion of the Sexual Revolution. Undergraduate women often got pregnant, but never had babies, if you catch my meaning.
Once Professor Anscombe was sought out by a young woman who was pregnant by a professor 30 years older than she. This young student was quite upset and unsure what to do about it. She confided that this professor, the father of the baby, thought abortion would be the obvious solution. “And why does he think that?” asked Anscombe. The girl replied, ‘Well, the first problem is, he doesn’t entirely accept the full humanity of the un-born.” “No,” Anscombe shot back, “His first problem is that he doesn’t even accept the full humanity of the undergraduate.”
Professor Elizabeth Anscombe
Although Anscombe’s stand against the atomic bomb had been widely reported at the time, when she decided to personally and nonviolently intervene to stop the dismemberment of living babies, the coverage was practically zero. A newspaper photograph that her family cherishes shows her being hauled away from the abortion clinic doorway by two policemen, but she is not even identified in the caption or in the article. This, despite the fact that at the time she was arguably the world’s most prominent living philosopher.
In 1970, Elizabeth Anscombe was appointed to the Chair of Philosophy at Cambridge. She spent the next 10 years doing more original work in philosophy, writing, speaking, and striving to empower women – particularly young women – with the intellectual strength to resist conformism, to seek and love the truth, and to accept no substitutes.
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See the list of all our blog posts, put in categories.
Where Violence Begins
by Rachel MacNair
The planetarium presentation, as usual, was beautiful. Yet there was a disquieting aspect to the language used.
Stars were “dying.” Why not “being transformed”?
These stars did something in a “desperate” attempt to prevent this. How can an inanimate object be desperate?
One star taking material from another star was “cannibalizing.”
Artist’s impression. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/M.Kornmesser
The animation of the solar ray was as wonderfully dramatic as fireworks. Yet it was described as violent. It was doing what it was supposed to, and not hurting anyone. In fact, it was most definitely doing the opposite – it was life-giving. We couldn’t be alive if the sun didn’t do this.
Why all the battle language? It’s a violent perspective on what are not violent phenomena.
Why not an analogy to cooking instead? They could be “giving the recipe for making a black hole.”
We could suggest this is a male vs. female way of looking at it, but that’s unfair to men. Most men spend more time cooking than battling.
It reminded me of the Babylonian creation myth in which the god Marduk kills the dragon Tianmut, she being his own mother or grandmother, and divided her body to make the earth and sky.
This violence is a common feature of the mythologies of imperial cultures. When violence is entangled in the very core of governing, with war and execution, torture and genocide, infanticide and feticide, plus cruelty to animals, then violence is also entangled in the very creation of the universe. It’s natural. It need not be avoided. Instead, it’s celebrated as glorious and heroic.
We don’t generally see stars as gods in our culture, but the planetarium show was treating them as beings with feelings and intentions just the same. Creation of new things was narrated with the language of destruction. This would be expected from a philosophy that sees the world through a violent lens.
This is not science. Giving such a lens a scientific topic doesn’t turn it into science.
The Babylonian myth was the one I thought of out of the many that could also illustrate the point because it was countered by a group of the empire’s conquered people. They came up with a story of creation where gods didn’t battle each other because there was only one God. The stars were not gods, but useful items. The process was orderly, logical, and peaceful.
The story told by the rebels is the one most familiar to people nowadays; millions of people have it in their homes and it’s recited frequently all over the world as the first chapter of Genesis in the Bible. The Babylonian empire, on the other hand, is long gone, its myths only known to some. Ancient nonviolent activism made an enduring change.
Yet the impetus of seeing things through a lens of the idea that violence is at the core of the universe is still with us, and academics who themselves spend more time cooking than battling nevertheless find erudite ways of using violent metaphors.
If all the lethal violence we oppose starts in the thinking process before it makes its way to gory reality, we need to pay attention to opposing it even at the stage of simple language.
Adventures as a Delegate to the Democratic Party Convention
by Lisa Stiller
Reminder: The Consistent Life Network’s blog is for the airing of a wide variety of views connected to the consistent life ethic. Therefore, the views are those of the author and not necessarily of the organization. Political elections are especially likely to elicit sharply differing perspectives from consistent-lifers.
Lisa Stiller
It was quite a challenge, as a Consistent Life Ethic supporter, to become a delegate to the national Democratic convention. And in so many ways, it was also a challenge to be there. But looking back, I think the whole experience was probably worth the effort it took to get there.
So, why did I even bother to do it?
One of the biggest challenges for us Consistent Life people is election time. There are so few candidates out there that are really CL. Former Pennsylvania Governor Bob Casey and Former US Senator (OR) Mark Hatfield are two of the most well-known leading elected officials who came close to a consistent ethic of life. Today, it is almost impossible to get elected to any office if you are CL: it’s that opposition to abortion snag.
And along with this, it’s almost impossible to become an active member of a local Democratic party if you even breathe the idea that you oppose the sacred cow of the “right to choose.” Especially if you are from the west coast or the northeast.
But believing strongly that I cannot just sit around and not vote at all, I try to go for the candidates who come closest to a Consistent Life Ethic stand. So when Bernie Sanders announced his candidacy for president, I was pretty excited. Yes, he is pro-choice. I wish there had been a chance at some point for some CL people to have a talk with him. But his economic policies would do the most to drive down the abortion rate — look at countries that have universal health care and better social supports than we have, and their abortion rates are considerably lower. And Bernie opposes the death penalty, does not believe we need to rush to war, and supports measures which would bring down poverty rates.
So, for the first time in about 27 years, I got involved in a presidential campaign. I had my sights set on going to Philadelphia from the beginning. I wanted to support Bernie’s message of peace; caring for the poor; opposing the death penalty; and taking a big step out of the box to try to make single payer health care, a $15 minimum wage, and free public higher education a reality. And I wanted to use that opportunity to begin discussions about CL with other Bernie supporters and the media.
Working with the Bernie people was the easy part. I even met a few other people who opposed abortion, and supported Bernie because his economic policies would drive down abortion rates. Fortunately, abortion never became a big issue in this campaign. And when I spoke about it terms of a consistent life ethic to people, I didn’t get ostracized. Of course most people did not agree, but some did say they got being opposed to abortion from the opposition to violence perspective and appreciated the consistency of the CL viewpoint, even if they were pro-choice.
I campaigned hard, had my name out there, and was incredibly shocked when I received the highest number of votes in my congressional district to become a Bernie Sanders delegate!
At Democrats for Life Luncheon, Democratic Convention: Rob Arner, Lisa Stiller, Rosemary Vorel
So I got to Philadelphia, and realized I had some work to do. And some real challenges. There were endless speeches, with many speakers throwing in their support for the “right to choose.” There were three that were chosen specifically for their support for abortion, including speakers from Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America. I took that opportunity to try to walk around the lobby area where the media was hanging out to try to interest reporters in a different view, and to talk to them about the fact that yes, there were Democrats who opposed abortion. Most that I managed to have a conversation with were surprised. Very surprised. A few gave me cards, or took mine, and one finally agreed to interview me for a talk show to be aired at some future date. We have our work cut out for us in educating the media about “pro-life liberals.”
The other challenge was trying to talk to other delegates I met. Conversations got started anywhere and everywhere; the phone charging station, food lines, and at the after convention parties that went until after 2am (and were the major cause of all that sleep deprivation). And when the subject of abortion came up, or even when asked why I supported Bernie, if I felt comfortable with the person, I started talking about the consistent life ethic. And no one turned away from me. Of course, most did not agree, and I returned to subjects we had common ground on. I can only hope I planted some seeds.
Perhaps the most challenging task I took on was was talking to all of the Planned Parenthood volunteers who swarmed throughout the convention center every morning, and approached just about everyone. Some actually engaged in a conversation. Many did not realize that opposing abortion was a cause for being closed out of involvement in local and state Democratic Party involvement. And with most we were able to end the conversation agreeing to disagree about abortion but agreeing that we needed to do more to support those resources that women and families need to thrive. Yes, some walked away when I told them how I felt. But it was those other conversations that seemed to make the effort worth the time.
I guess that is why I decided going to Philadelphia was so important. The challenge of talking about CL to other delegates, and the chance I knew I would have to talk to people such as those Planned Parenthood volunteers. It’s about planting seeds, starting a dialogue, and putting a human face on “the opposition.”
Now that it’s over, I am trying to decide if I want to stay so actively involved with the local Democrats. I have built some good relationships. Met some pretty good people, who I might even want to have as friends. If I continue, I will be taking on the challenge of promoting the Consistent Life Ethic in a tough environment. But I have come to believe that so much of our work is about relationships. Build on those first, and keep planting those seeds. You never know where they will fall.
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See the list of all our blog posts, put in categories.
For more of our blog posts on Actions and Adventures, see:
The Adventures of Organizing as a Consistent Lifer
Violence Bolstered by Professional Contradictions
Mourning After & Hoping for the Future, We Call for a Consistent Life Texas!
My Day at the Democratic National Convention
Excerpt – Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion
Excerpt from the Introduction to Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion
by Rachel M. MacNair
Understanding Perspectives
Back when I was in college, pursuing a major in Peace and Conflict Studies at Earlham (a Quaker college, I being a Quaker), several of us activists put together a program to educate about what was wrong with nuclear energy. Once done, we had done so well that a student asked how it could possibly be that anyone would support it. I immediately offered a three-minute pro-nuclear diatribe. My fellow activists started getting uncomfortable, wanting me to explain what was wrong with what I was saying.
I regard this as a crucial skill for all those interested in peace and therefore in conflict resolution. For effective debating, for proper listening, for the opportunity to fashion creative solutions not otherwise thought of, for the ability to get along with people with whom one disagrees, it is important to be able to understand and articulate a view different from one’s own.
In another incident from college days, we were preparing for a program arguing against nuclear weapons. A friend said these were so horrid and dangerous that we only needed to explain this, with no further information needed. When the program came, I watched as an audience member asked this simple question: “What about the Soviets? How can we give up nuclear weapons as long as they still have them?” This was not an unusual question and should have been anticipated. Yet my friend had no answer. It is indeed important to be familiar with all points of view when the goal is to be effective in presenting one’s own. . . .
Abortion: Option, Violence, or Tragedy
The philosophical perspectives on abortion in contemporary controversies can be understood on a continuum from support to opposition, and as with most continuums more people are likely somewhere along the middle rather than at either extreme. Here we will call the two extremes abortion-as-option and abortion-as-violence, with the continuum between called abortion-as-tragic-necessity.
The term “pro-choice” is commonly used for abortion-as-option, and is insisted upon by any peace advocates who favor abortion availability. Their reasoning is for the liberation of women and perhaps also for the alleviation of poverty. Groups that favor this view include the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), the War Resister’s League, and magazines of wide circulation and long history such as The Progressive and Mother Jones.
However, this extreme is also occupied by men who wish the women they impregnate to take this option whether or not the women themselves actually desire it. Similarly, there are those interested in eugenics or who take a racist attitude. For purposes of this book, we are only interested in aspects of interest to peace psychology, and therefore will not be considering the views of those whose reasoning is not for women’s benefit.
Similarly, the term “pro-life” is commonly used for the abortion-as-violence perspective, but this view is held by many for whom sensitivity to a right-to-life concern is narrow and does not extend to opposing war or capital punishment or favoring effective anti-poverty programs. This has been particularly true in recent partisan politics in several countries.
In the same way, this book is only considering the views of those who oppose all these forms of violence across the board, in what is commonly called the “consistent life ethic”. . . This view is officially held by many Catholic documents and the Mennonite church (Mennonites are a traditionally pacifist church) as well as a large number of people of varying religions and of secular orientation in the peace movement. . . .
Why the Difference?
The fact that peace advocates can be found on both sides and in the middle of the continuum has much to do with understanding the status of the human embryo and fetus.
- If the status is one of “products of conception” or tissue, then removing the growth is nothing more than ending an unwanted pregnancy, and the understanding that this is entirely a decision for the pregnant woman would be determinative; this goes with the “abortion-as-option” view.
- If the embryo or fetus has the status of a baby, a human being entitled to the rights all human beings have to be protected from being killed, then abortion is an act of violence subject to all the problems that using violence as a problem-solver commonly has, as would be understood in the “abortion-as-violence” view.
- If the embryo or fetus is understood to be a living organism but one with a status similar to an animal, then killing an animal is to be avoided when possible but allowed when really needed. Persuasive abortion reduction programs are a good idea, but not legal bans; hence, abortion-as-tragic-necessity. . . .
Left: 6-week embryo. Right: Rachel MacNair in 1985
To illustrate how these different perspectives lead to different discussions, take the impact on women’s equality. To the abortion-as-option view, it is exceedingly obvious that women having control of their own reproductive lives is foundational for women’s equality. From the abortion-as-violence perspective, telling women we must have surgery to be treated equally is disparaging female biology, and therefore a form of privileging male characteristics. From the abortion-as-option view, forcing women to continue pregnancies is itself a form of gender discrimination. From the abortion-as-violence perspective, when pregnancies are regarded as optional rather than a condition to be accommodated, then those employers and schools who understand themselves to be inconvenienced are more likely to discriminate against pregnant women.
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For more excerpts of this book as blog posts, see:
Excerpt – Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion: Wars Cause Abortion
Excerpt – Peace Psychology Perspectives on Abortion: Child Abuse
Ancient Roots of the Consistent Life Ethic: Greece
by Mary Krane Derr
Mary Krane Derr
The ancient Greek mathematician, musician, vegetarian, and spiritual teacher Pythagoras (580? BCE-??) taught a nonviolence ethic rooted in the kinship of all living beings. Pythagoras’ ethic did not exclude or denigrate women. Most unconventionally, Pythagoras defined only sexual misconduct, not intercourse itself, as polluting. He accepted women equally as his students.
Women originally created the Eleusinian Mysteries, and today these rituals deeply fascinate feminist goddess spirituality devotees. According to local custom, celebrants did not sacrifice a victim to the goddess, but offered her grapes, other cultivated fruits, honeycombs, and wool. The women had a special feast of grains, with perhaps a little fish. Although today’s vegetarians or vegans may find fault here, these rituals were certainly more peaceful and life-affirming than those added on following the Athenian occupation. The Mysteries were changed to begin in Athens with pig and other animal sacrifices.
These changes suited Athens’ ruling elite, who regularly devoured multi-course flesh meals, considering sow’s womb after (induced?) miscarriage to be a delicacy. They ranked women as little better than animals.
Although his legacy has literally come down to us in fragments, one direct contribution of the Pythagorean ethic does remain a cultural presence: the Hippocratic Oath. Some life-respecting provisions of the Oath are still widely held up as integral values of medical practice. For example, the commitments to “do no harm;” to observe confidentiality; and to refrain from sexual abuse of patients, even one’s social “inferiors.”
A single provision, however, has in recent decades occasioned fierce controversy: “I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.”
The controversy refers little or not at all to the expansively life-revering ethic in which this provision originated. Some right-to-lifers treat it as an ahistorical mandate requiring instant, uncritical obedience. Thus they do not apply it to physician-assisted state-sponsored execution.
Some pro-choicers seem similarly unaware of the Pythagorean source ethic’s character, let alone its resonance with present-day values and norms they may aspire to themselves. Thus they find this provision at best irrelevant today, and at worst hostile to sick or disabled persons, and women.
In his Roe v. Wade ruling, Harry Blackmun states that Pythagoreans, in a “spirit of uncompromising austerity,” “frowned upon” suicide and opposed abortion as “a matter of dogma,” the “dogma” that “the embryo was animate from the moment of conception, and abortion meant destruction of a living being.” He notes the commonplace practice and advocacy of abortion and suicide in the ancient Greco-Roman world. Thus the Oath’s Pythagorean values represent not “an absolute standard for medical conduct,” but a minority, sectarian, largely unpersuasive view that survived only because Christians adopted it. Blackmun staunchly defended Roe for the rest of his life, despite his famous announcement in a capital punishment case that he was done “tinkering with the machinery of death.”
“Frowned upon,” “dogma,” “uncompromising austerity”: might not Blackmun be projecting a late 20th century stereotype of grim, rigid moralizers with peculiar opinions onto people it probably does not fit? And even if a position is in the minority – why and how should that in and of itself invalidate it?
Large numbers of Americans have looked with disfavor on death penalty abolitionists like the later Blackmun – yet that by no means invalidates his decision to take up their cause.
But what makes Blackmun’s concern for life on death row qualitatively different from Pythagorean or present-day concern for fetal life? What if he had known that Pythagoreans – and other abortion opponents from antiquity to the present – aspired to respect for all lives, including women’s?
Curiously, Blackmun then concludes “ancient religion did not bar abortion.” Did he mean the state religions of Greece and Rome? These also did not bar – and even outright approved – many practices that today’s pro-life and pro-choice persons alike would likely agree were oppressive and undesirable of repetition.
For example, the Roman paterfamilias, or oldest male in the household, legally claimed not only all its property, but vitae necisque potestas, the power of life and death over its members, “free” and slave. He could force a woman to undergo an abortion, or her baby to undergo infanticide.
Disability, female gender, or non-marital birth usually doomed newborns. He could sell displeasing older children into slavery or have them executed. The state made regular public entertainment spectacles of violent mass human and animal killings.
Small wonder that Martin Luther King, Jr. offered early Christian resistance to officially sanctioned violence in ancient Rome as a model for the African-American civil rights movement.
Editor’s Note: Mary Krane Derr was a leading scholar on pro-life feminism and related nonviolence advocacy of yesteryear. She co-edited the book ProLife Feminism: Yesterday and Today. The above is an excerpt of a section from “Activism Throughout the Centuries,” Chapter 13 of Consistently Opposing Killing: From Abortion to Assisted Suicide, the Death Penalty, and War.
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For more blog posts on the history of the consistent life ethic, see:
First Stirrings in Connecting the Life Issues
The Consistent Life Consensus in Ancient Christianity
The Adventures of Prolifers for Survival: Scorned by Mobilization for Survival
Reminiscing on the Founding Meeting of the Consistent Life Network
My Day at the Democratic National Convention
Deb Kosak & Rob Arner outside DN
by Rob Arner
I got to the Democrats for Life of America (DFLA) luncheon just in time to hear John Bel Edwards, governor of Louisiana, speak. I liked him a lot. He had a humble demeanor and was ardent about both being a Democrat and being pro-life. He made the point, familiar to us all, about how there is a difference between being pro-life and anti-abortion. I’d estimate about 50-60 people there, but there was press. The Life Matters Journal (LMJ) contingent was there, as was CL board member Lisa Stiller, along with Rev. Pat Mahoney and Rev. Rob Schenk, and two or three other people I’d met at the Life/Peace/Justice conference at Villanova this last spring.
I met Fr. Ed Bell, a priest in the archdiocese of Philadelphia and pastor of a church in Media, PA. He is ardently for the consistent life ethic (CLE) and maintains a literature table at his parish in which he includes our material. He had our yard signs (pictured with him below).
Father Ed Bell
After connecting with Christina Healy with the LMJ group, Ed and I went down to FDR park, across from the convention site. This was where the Bernie Sanders folks were gathering and the protest site was. It was surrounded by an 8-9 foot high metal fence. Though there were all kinds of security barriers ringing the convention site, I would not say it felt militarized. The police did not wear riot gear, and were mingling with the convention-goers, many on bikes.
But the striking thing was how deflated everything felt. There were 40 or so tents set up for Bernie supporters camping there, and plenty of those supporters, but not the thousands I had been expecting. For the most part they were just sitting in their camp playing guitars under trees and talking about the unfairness of the convention. It actually felt anticlimactic and deflating that there weren’t more people.
We found a few folks to converse with and distribute cards to. When I summarized our stance by saying we were against killing people, one young woman around the fringe of the Sanders group told me “We just disagree on who counts as people!” Another young lady, who was acting quite morose and seemed depressed to me, said “Some people just need to die. I feel like the world would be a better place if Trump were gone.”
Eventually we quit approaching people and just set up with our signs displayed. At this point the Life Matters Journal contingent joined us, adding to our witness. They were energetic and magnetic. More and more people began coming up to us for conversation, attracted by my sign, with many expressing sympathy and taking our cards. I was interviewed by three members of the media, one from the local paper and the other from the Christian Science Monitor and another freelance writer.
Rob’s sign
In all, I probably only gave out 100 cards or so, less than I would have liked, but I gained some very valuable skills. This was my first time leafleting (for anything!) I’m not usually an especially outgoing person in crowds, but I learned the groove and felt very confident by the time I needed to go home. I can do it.
Inconsistency Sabotages the Peace Movement
Reminder: The Consistent Life Network’s blog is for the airing of a wide variety of views connected to the consistent life ethic. Therefore, the views are those of the author and not necessarily of the organization. Political elections are especially likely to elicit sharply differing perspectives from consistent-lifers.
On the Occasion of the 2016 U.S. Democrat Party Convention
by Rachel MacNair
There are many reasons to think Donald Trump’s electability is low. The alienation he causes is deep, including among conservatives who normally are comfortable voting Republican (see for example columns of Ross Douthat, David Brooks, George Will, and the National Review). Still, as long as he’s on the ballot, Trump winning possible, as polling is showing (though it’s not normally reliable until after Labor Day).
Several endorsers of the Consistent Life Mission Statement have signed on to an open letter entitled “Called to Resist Bigotry,” documenting that we have a candidate who’s far more problematic than usual.
What about Single-Issue Abortion Opponents?
I know from two recent pro-life conferences that many pro-life activists that Trump’s nomination is a harmful turn of events. So why might single-issue pro-lifers still vote for him?
Reason 1: The Supreme Court
The U.S. Supreme Court has become a political football ever since it made a political decision in Roe v. Wade, taking the decision regarding abortion laws away from the state legislatures and taking away the right of the citizenry – including women who’ve had abortions – to petition their legislatures for a redress of their grievances.
Roe was a profound betrayal of democracy. The struggle to restore democratic debate, rather than imposition of top-down policy preferences, by elite judges who are out of touch with the harsh realities of abortion, is not a minor thing. Of course, even having the very right to life of human beings subject to democratic debate is a problem, since it should be a given. But at least that would be an improvement over the current intolerable elitist situation.
Trump knows the Supreme Court justice issue is crucial to a large portion of voters, which is why he’s already released his short list of names he might appoint to the U.S. Supreme Court, ones who may be anti-Roe. And even if he’s unreliable on doing what he said he would – he actually prides himself on being unreliable – at least he might still appoint one of those. And he might fight for their ratification, and not decide to negotiate them away in a deal.
But Clinton can be pretty well counted on to appoint judges that will strengthen Roe for decades.
(Neither candidate, of course, is likely to appoint consistent-life judges, which is what we naturally advocate for, but I’m discussing the reasoning of single-issue voters).
Reason 2: Fear of Clinton
Aside from court appointments, what could happen under Clinton?
- There are many things a president can do to block or water down good legislation.
- She could work hard to promote what from our point of view is bad legislation; she would be in an ideal situation to do so, and her strong advocacy indicates that she’s so inclined.
- Executive orders could be issued or maintained, such as pushing abortion legalization on other countries that accept U.S. aid.
- There have been fears that pro-life voices will be squelched under the idea that they’re “hate speech.”
We’ll be hearing much more of these and similar fears through the course of the election. The fears of what could happen under Clinton are very real.
Reason 3: The Closed Mind of Democrats
Democrats have gotten so they won’t give pro-lifers, including pro-life Democrats, a hearing at all. Many are the times when we can’t even avoid being insulted in the most shocking and unfair terms. Much as what Trump gives may be only lip service, he at least gives that much. Occasionally. Some pro-lifers have a sense that they can meet with him and educate him in a way that’s utterly blocked out for Clinton.
This goes beyond the abortion issue itself. Being closed-minded on any topic is not likely to be healthy.
If Trump Wins?
As usual, abortion defenders would blame pro-lifers for any pro-war and otherwise violent policies that Trump implements. This fits their stereotypes, and it’s a long-standing habit. The exit polls may well back them up on this, for the reasons stated above.
But if progressive people had advocated pro-life principles all these years, then this wouldn’t have happened. Tender-hearted people have been told their concerns for the lives of little babies aren’t welcome in many progressive circles. Therefore, they are told, those concerns must be taken elsewhere. Pro-lifers have been chased off. Not merely people whose only concern is abortion, but pro-life peace advocates have been chased off – see, for instance, how the Mobilization for Survival, supposedly a coalition of groups focused on the arms race, rejected the membership of our predecessor group, Pro-lifers for Survival.
As Mary Meehan put it in a classic 1980 article entitled The Left Has Betrayed the Sanctity of Life:
“If much of the leadership of the pro-life movement is right-wing, that is due largely to the default of the Left. We ‘little people’ who marched against the war and now march against abortion would like to see leaders of the Left speaking out on behalf of the unborn. But we see only a few . . . We are dismayed by their inconsistency. And we are not impressed by arguments that we should work and vote for them because they are good on such issues as food stamps and medical care.”
What if peace and justice advocates had included advocacy for nonviolent solutions for unintended pregnancies? If they had included the well-being of unborn babies, their mothers, families, and communities in their peace-and-justice concerns all along, then the politicians who oppose a peace agenda wouldn’t have been able to gain the foothold they have.
This is what we’ve been saying for years, and is now as urgent as ever: the inconsistency of many peace folks on abortion is causing great damage to other issues of peace and justice.
The solution is to be consistent instead. This is sound strategy on behalf of all peace issues: the more peace activists do this, the quicker we’ll make progress on everything.
Varieties of Hawk: Clinton v. Trump on Foreign Policy
Reminder: The Consistent Life Network’s blog is for the airing of a wide variety of views connected to the consistent life ethic. Therefore, the views are those of the author and not necessarily of the organization. Political elections are especially likely to elicit sharply differing perspectives from consistent-lifers.
by John Whitehead
John Whitehead
For an American peace advocate, the two major political parties rarely offer appealing candidates in a presidential election. The 2016 election is no exception to this rule. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, the presumptive nominees for the Democratic and Republican Parties, respectively, seem dedicated to the continued use of American military force around the world. However they might differ in other respects, on foreign policy both take a hawkish stance.
Hillary Clinton’s many years in public office have given her a substantial record of hawkish decisions. During her eight years in the Senate, Clinton voted in favor of the broadly worded authorization to use military force in response to the September 11th, 2001, terrorist attacks. This vote led to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. She also voted to authorize military force in Iraq, leading to the invasion of that country in 2003. As Barack Obama’s secretary of state, Clinton was the leading foreign policy official during the administration’s escalation of American involvement in Afghanistan, the targeted killing campaign against alleged terrorists, and the Libyan war.
In the case of the Libyan intervention, media reports indicate that Clinton played a prominent role in shaping the administration’s policy: a dubious distinction in light of how the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi led to civil war and chaos in the country. Clinton’s foreign policy aide Jake Sullivan described her as being “a critical voice on Libya in administration deliberations, at NATO, and in contact group meetings—as well as the public face of the U.S. effort in Libya. She was instrumental in securing the authorization, building the coalition, and tightening the noose around Qadhafi [sic] and his regime.”
Other statements from former colleagues about Clinton are similarly worrying. Dennis Ross, who served on the National Security Council during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, commented, “It’s not that she’s quick to use force, but her basic instincts are governed more by the uses of hard power.” Anne-Marie Slaughter, who served under Clinton as director of State Department Policy Planning, commented “when the choice is between action and inaction, and you’ve got risks in either direction, which you often do, [Clinton would] rather be caught trying.” While some might consider Slaughter’s statement a testimonial to decisiveness, those who wish to see an end to American wars should be concerned by the prospect of a commander-in-chief whose default preference is for “action,” even in the face of risk.
In contrast to Clinton’s substantial public record, Donald Trump’s lack of prior service in public office leaves no guide to his foreign policy stance apart from his public statements—a poor basis for judgment, even when a presidential candidate less mercurial than Trump is concerned. For whatever they are worth, however, Trump’s statements indicate a hawkishness comparable to Clinton’s.
Despite recent claims to have opposed the Iraq War, Trump’s statements on that conflict in 2002-2003 show his position to have been simply a muddle: he once expressed vague support for the war that gave way to equally vague criticisms. Trump’s position on the Libyan war has been similarly confused, moving from support to opposition to support again. His attitude toward the Afghan war is not much clearer. Whatever else these shifting positions demonstrate, they do not show a firm commitment to peace.
Moreover, during his presidential campaign, Trump has infamously made that should alarm peace advocates. He has torturing members of ISIS through techniques such as waterboarding. Trump has also repeatedly called for killing terrorists’ families. The overall impression left by Trump’s public utterances is of a candidate willing to use military force ruthlessly and recklessly.
The choice between Trump and Clinton is a demoralizing one for someone committed to peace and an end to hawkish foreign policies. This choice becomes even more dismaying, however, when viewed in the context of recent electoral history.
Barack Obama has hardly been a dovish president, but peace advocates could at least take some satisfaction in his opposition, while still an Illinois state senator, to the Iraq War. In 2008, this opposition made him more appealing, for many Democratic voters, than Hillary Clinton and contributed to Obama winning the Democratic nomination that year. Obama appeared to be, if not a genuine “peace candidate,” at least less hawkish than Clinton—and of course he appeared considerably less hawkish than George W. Bush. A kind of incrementalism in foreign policy seemed plausible in this context: the Democratic president elected in 2008 was less hawkish than the alternatives and perhaps his successor would be less hawkish still and so American foreign policy could be nudged along in the direction favored by peace advocates.
Yet after eight years of Barack Obama, peace advocates find themselves presented with major party candidates who are both more hawkish than Obama. The apparent incremental progress toward peace under Obama seems to be slipping away in light of the current choices. This should make peace advocates, including those who support a consistent ethic of life, wary of an incrementalism that accepts hawkish candidates because they are somewhat less hawkish than the alternative. Such a strategy might not lead to net improvements in American foreign policy in the long term.
Tom Taylor (left) and John Whitehead (right) holding our banner at the March for Life 2016
Consistent life ethic advocates, and others who care about peace, should consider more radical approaches than choosing the less hawkish major party option. One alternative is to put far less emphasis on precisely who occupies the office of president and instead advocate for reducing the overall power and importance of the presidency as an institution. The tremendous concentration of power, particularly the power of the national security establishment, in a single person’s hands may be far more decisive in shaping foreign policy than the political party to which that excessively powerful person belongs.
Another, non-exclusive, alternative is to renew the peace movement at the grassroots, building an energetic, vocal lobby against war and the national security establishment. If such a lobby constantly challenged hawkish policies when pursued by politicians of either major party, this might serve to change the larger political context in which those politicians operate. A more dovish foreign policy consensus shaped by such a lobby could create better electoral options than “hawkish” and “slightly less hawkish.” Such a cross-partisan goal would also fit in well with the larger cross-partisan philosophy and mission of he consistent life ethic.
Mourning After & Hoping for the Future, We Call for a Consistent Life Texas!
Mourning After & Hoping for the Future, We Call for a Consistent Life Texas!
Thad Crouch (speaking of himself in the third person) offers this report:
Mourning after the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) overturned two of four provisions of Texas law on medical regulations for abortion clinics —while also looking hopefully at two Texas death penalty cases that SCOTUS has accepted for review— the Consistent Life Network (CLN) was joined by spokes persons from a regional Pro-Life group, a state-wide peace group, and a “pro-lifetime” state senator in calling for Texas to become a consistent life state.
On June 28th, the morning after the SCOTUS abortion ruling on the Texas HB2 abortion law, Thad Crouch, CLN board member, facilitated a press conference on the south lawn of the Texas State Capitol. Heather Gardner, executive director of the Central Texas Coalition for Life was the main speaker on abortion while Crouch represented Pax Christi Texas to speak on the death penalty.
Heather Gardner and Thad Crouch at Texas state capitol
Texas State Senator Eddie Lucio, Jr, of District 27 was scheduled to speak, but had to cancel for an urgent matter and issued a written statement. Lucio is known as the Texas “pro-lifetime” senator because he consistently votes in support of both the pro-life cause and issues concerning care for the living, such as funding health services for women and expanding adoption. He also wrote the 2005 “Life Without Parole” law to limit use of the Texas death penalty.
Crouch pointed out that the culture of death categorizes abortion as an issue of reproductive rights, women’s rights, and human rights, and speaks of the death penalty as solely a criminal justice issue, while CLN places both into the context of violence along with war, euthanasia, racism, and extreme poverty.
Senator Lucio’s statement included these words:
“As a pro-lifetime Senator, I remain steadfast in my belief in the sanctity of life. Because God, our Creator, created us in His image, my Catholic faith guides me to support policies that nurture, care for and protect all life — from conception to birth to natural death. This includes the life of the born and the unborn. . . . As a Christian, I pray that we never have the occasion of having the life of a woman be put at risk due to substandard facility conditions while undertaking an invasive medical procedure, such as a surgical abortion. I pray that the life of women is never — ever — put at risk if serious complications ever arise.”
Gardner has trained over 1,500 side walk counselors to help women in crisis pregnancies find loving alternatives to abortion. She explained that while the two provisions of HB2 that require FDA standards for administering abortion drugs and limit Texas abortions to 20 weeks remain in force, SCOTUS struck down provisions that required abortion clinic facilities to meet the standards of ambulatory surgical centers and required their physicians to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. She is very concerned for the safety of women after SCOTUS granted the abortion industry a pass from those standards to which other Texas surgical centers must adhere.
She asked “Why are low-income women being treated as second class citizens?”
Gardner noted that Whole Woman’s Health, the very abortion clinic which brought HB2 to court, has itself failed health inspections for numerous reasons, including unsanitary rusty instruments that go inside women’s bodies.
To show that the pro-life movement is much broader than the right-wing-Christian-only stereotype, CLN quoted statements from several of our member groups who responded to the SCOTUS ruling, such as Secular Pro-Life, Feminists For Life, All Our Lives and Democrats for Life as well as our friends at New Wave Feminists. Crouch then asked why the pro-choice movement opposed this law when their leaders keep saying they want abortion to be “safe, rare, and legal.” He invited pro-choice people to send him comments with their ideas to make abortion safer and more rare—including ideas to make society more just towards women.
Gardner responded to Crouch’s question about making abortion safe by pointing out that while pro-choice Texans opposed HB2, she actually did met some pro-choicers in favor of HB2 in 2013 when she was present at the Capitol while the bill was being debated by the Texas legislature. She explained that many former abortion clinic workers had conflicted consciences when they pointed out unsanitary conditions at clinics and their supervisors prioritized completing abortions above the health and safety of women.
Gardner has many friends who are former abortion clinic workers, due her role as a volunteer advocate for And Then There Were None (ATTN), an organization that helps clinic workers leave the abortion industry and heal their Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress or their moral injury.
As a matter of fact, when Abby Johnson, the founder of ATTN, left the abortion industry, it was Gardner whom she came to first. The Coalition for Life trains sidewalk counselors to be prayerful, friendly, gentle, and approachable, while offering help to both clinic patients and workers. This way of being of service outside abortion clinics has proven far more effective than carrying signs with scary pictures and being loud and angry. ATTN has so far helped over 150 clinic workers leave the abortion industry.
Responding to “making abortion rare,” Gardner relayed that while many abortion clinic workers truly do want to make abortion rare, the industry does not. Abby Johnson wrote in her book, Unplanned, that her supervisor ordered her to increase the abortion numbers at her clinic because “nonprofit is a tax status, not a business status.”
Gardner then articulated a connection between consistent life stands on abortion and the death penalty by reflecting on friendships she has with former abortion clinic workers. She pointed out that while some people make very bad decisions and harmful actions, even to kill people, “we condemn those actions, but there are people behind those actions.” Further she said, “We have an issue with our justice system that needs to be addressed and the solution is not to kill people.”
Speaking for Pax Christi Texas (PCT), a Catholic group which promotes justice and nonviolent peacemaking, Crouch called the death penalty an important life issue for Texas, which has executed more people than any other state. Further PCT called the death penalty flawed, unnecessary and expensive. Crouch said PCT prays for the victims of crime and their loved ones. He pointed out that Pope St. John Paul II changed the Catholic teaching on the death penalty so that the gravity of the crime is actually not a consideration, but rather the considerations are the sanctity & dignity of life for both the public and the criminal and the common good.
Crouch then told the story of Bishop Daniel Garcia, the auxiliary bishop of the Austin Diocese, meeting Pope Francis at Papal mass on the border of the United States and Mexico. When Bishop Garcia said he was from Austin, Pope Francis said, “Austin, Texas!?! Don’t give up the fight to end the death penalty in Texas!” In May, Bishop Garcia passed that same imperative to PCT and the Respect Life Ministry at St. Ignatius Martyr Catholic parish in Austin when the two groups met with him to discuss this life issue.
Crouch said it broke his heart that when the Pope thinks of Texas he doesn’t think of cowboys, rodeos, or brisket, but the death penalty.
He requested that those who stand for life by working to end the death penalty open their hearts to the possibility of extending their empathy to the lives of the unborn by considering that abortion is a torturous death.
Speaking once again as CLN, Crouch invited Texans to create a consistent life Texas that was consistently pro-life on both abortion and the death penalty:.
“If we merely see only most people as having lives of value worth protecting, and just one category of people whose lives we think are of less value, or don’t deserve protection—whether that’s because of nationality, politics, race, or religion, or whether or not it’s because someone was convicted of a terrible crime, or whether or not they’ve been born yet, or whether they are terminally ill, or whether they are in extreme poverty— if we have just one category the we think is not worth protecting, then we have something in common with the Orlando shooter.”
“Seamless Garment” — Poem by Daniel Berrigan
The beauty of the “seamless garment” image!
No one, not one
exposed to the rude winds of the world,
No one, however lorn or lost, out in the cold.
No one rejected, no one unwanted!
the unborn, the aged, ill, condemned,
the expendable, “lives of no worth”-
no matter the tag,
everyone matters!
If these are expendable, who is precious?
No one is expendable!
Everyone wrapped in a vast enfolding embrace,
a garment designed by God
bequeathed to us we
wear it proudly, tend it, repair it,
cherish it, design it anew,
yes, lend it , offer it everywhere!
a baptismal robe for the twice-born,
the woof and warp of our humanity!
See more on the consistent life of Daniel Berrigan