An Event-Full Month January 11 – Witness Against Torture rally in Washington, D.C., to close Guantanamo Bay January 14 – Mass Mobilization to Protect Immigrants and Refugees, in the U.S., find your local event. January 16 – Martin Luther King’s birthday observed. Go out and be of service! January 17 – Death Penalty Vigil with a civil disobedience action at the US Supreme Court building. Find more information and register here.
Previous years: We march in the March for Life, and we meet together afterwards
January 21 – Marking Roe v. Wade: Walk for Life West Coast (we’ll have a table) to mark the January 22 anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. January 27 – Marking Roe v. Wade: March for Life in Washington, D.C., along with several conferences. This is held later than usual due to the inauguration. For all of what the Consistent Life Network is doing during the activities marking Roe v. Wade, see our March for Life page. Come join us!
Abortion’s Role in the 2016 US Presidential Election Unlike previous years, a direct question about abortion wasn’t reported on exit polls (polls taken from those who have just voted). Indirectly, the make-up of the Supreme Court was a prime issue for about a fifth of voters, much more than usual, and more for Trump’s voters than Clinton’s. What portion involved concern about abortion rulings (pro or con) wasn’t asked. Also indirectly, reporting on Clinton’s lack of appeal to white evangelical voters included that group’s tendency to oppose abortion. Yet many other groups also find abortion repugnant. Exit polls only tell about those who voted. People who didn’t turn out weren’t asked why not. An expected upsurge of Hispanic votes didn’t happen (11% of voters, about the same as 2012). Why? There can be many reasons. But in one well-watched debate, Trump gave graphic words about what late-term abortion meant, and Clinton proceeded to justify late-term abortions. In a close race, there will always be speculation about dozens of things that could have kept a few thousand Democratic-leaning voters away in swing states. Couldn’t this widely-viewed exchange be one of them?
Let Your Friends Know – Petition to the Media Still Going Strong Our petition asking the media to include feminists and peace advocate pro-lifers in their coverage of abortion is still going strong, and we’re hoping all the events above will bring us more signatures. We could still use signatures from friends of our readers as well. We also like getting comments with the signatures, as with Katherine Hirschboeck: “I long for a nuanced and probing media that does not take the easy way out by polarizing. Please recognize us Consistent Life pro-lifers!”
Latest CL Blog In A Tale of Two Cruises, Rachel MacNair tells of her recent adventures on the post-election seminar cruises sponsored by two magazines on different sides of the political divide: National Review on the Right, and The Nation on the Left. It takes a good consistent-lifer to (sort of) fit in to both.
Quotation of the Week Dorothy Day We’re living in an age of genocide . . . And we do believe that there is not only the genocide of war, and the genocide that took place with the extermination of the Jews, but the whole program of . . . abortion is another form of genocide . . . [T]hey claim the poor are bringing forth tremendous numbers of children and so the solution is to kill them off.
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