book reviews


A Plea for Quiet – and for Peace: Consistent Life Ethic Themes in Fahrenheit 451

by John Whitehead Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury’s classic dystopian science fiction novel, turns 70 years old this October. The novel has been described as being about censorship, which is an accurate but limited characterization. The book contains other themes, some of which may interest consistent life ethic activists. The novel imagines a future United States…


Book Review – Rehumanize: A Vision to Secure Human Rights for All

by Lois Kerschen   If you want to understand the theory behind the Consistent Life Ethic (CLE) as well as how to practice it, Aimee Murphy’s book, Rehumanize: A Vision to Secure Human Rights for All, is a vital resource. Remarkably, she manages to explain CLE with clarity and simplicity.  Its multiple references to philosophers,…


A Daunting Disadvantage for the Pro-Life Side

by Acyutananda (see author’s blog) Of all the consistent pro-life policies or political positions, I have always chosen to focus my own efforts most on the anti-abortion position. This is partly because numerically legal abortion normally accounts for vastly more human-rights violations than say, capital punishment or unjust war. It is also because only anti-abortion…


Northern Ireland’s New Colonialism

by Maria Horan Throughout the twentieth century, much of Northern Ireland’s oppressions have been orchestrated in true colonial form from Westminster in London. But a new wave of violence has been re-established in the past months with legalized abortion being undemocratically forced on the North, as a small number of pro-abortion members of Parliament (MPs)…


How to Move from Theory to Practice: Reading “A Consistent Life”

by John Whitehead Let’s say you’ve succeeded in winning someone over to the consistent life ethic. This person now wants to defend human life against abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, war, and the myriad other threats to life. Now the question arises, “What should I do to promote the consistent life ethic?” A valuable new…


The Tragedy of Carrie Buck: A Review of Imbeciles by Adam Cohen

by Mary Lou Bennett     In his 2016 book, Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck, Adam Cohen recounts one of America’s great miscarriages of justice—the Supreme Court’s 1927 ruling in Buck v. Bell. This dark moment in history upheld a statute instituting compulsory sterilization of those deemed unfit…


Book Review: Defenders of the Unborn

by Carol Crossed Defenders of the Unborn:  The Pro-life Movement before Roe v Wade is one of the few books about abortion that I read without dozing off within the first 15 minutes.  Maybe this is because I know very little about the movement in the 1960s and 70s.  My days were absorbed with petitions…