Planned Parenthood Watch The good news: the new regulation prohibiting the use of Title X family-planning funds for places that do abortions, which had an injunction against it, had that injunction removed on July 12, 2019, by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court. The regulation goes into effect while it's being appealed. Just as much money can go to family planning; non-abortion places will now have more access to the funds. Planned Parenthood has declared it won’t take the funds.
News that’s probably neither good nor bad, but interesting, is that PP has fired Dr. Leana Wen (pictured) as president after only 8 months. Dr. Wen attributes this essentially to her desire to see abortion as health care rather than a political issue. This parallels a previous experience, when Pamela Maraldo, PhD, RN, was president, 1993-1995; she also didn’t last long. Medical professionals don’t seem to be a good fit. Our website, Grassroots Defunding: Finding Alternatives to Planned Parenthood, offers information and ideas for local activists for noncooperation with PP, which owns around 350 abortion clinics.
Day of Action for Immigrant Children July 18 was a successful Catholic Day of Action for Immigrant Children. While CLN is a non-sectarian group, the one of the main sponsors, Pax Christi USA, is a member group, and we were listed as endorsers.This connects our issues of racism, poverty, and war, since these are refugees fleeing war. On July 16, there was a Jewish Day of Action. The conditions under which children are being held has had lethal consequences for a few and may kill more.
New CLN Board Member: C.J. Williams
We recently welcomed onto the Consistent Life Board C.J. Williams. A long-time life issues activist, C.J. currently works as Director of Community Engagement & Digital Media Strategist for Massachusetts Citizens for Life. In a recent piece for our blog, she offers her thoughts on the most recent Pro-Life Women’s Conference, where she helped staff the Consistent Life table; she took a selfie, shown here (with Rachel MacNair in the background).
Latest CLN Blog Post In a recent essay, Ward Ricker asked the question “Why Haven’t We Ended Abortion?” Rachel MacNair offers her answer by detailing all the obstacles we face, comparing the question to why we haven’t ended other forms of killing as well, and pointing out that we’re actually making progress toward ending each of them. It’s important to understand that progress so that we feel motivated to continue – all the work in the past has in fact had an effect, so it’s reasonable that our current work will as well. This doesn’t actually address the main point of Ward’s essay, which Rachel is intending to consider in next week’s post.
Quotation of the Week Alan Kreider (Mennonite author, 1941-2017; Mennonites are a pacifist denomination with an official consistent-life-ethic position) The Patient Ferment of the Early Church: The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire (2016), p. 117 The prohibition on taking life had far-reaching consequences. One of these has to do with gladiatorial games. According to Tertullian, this prohibition was hard to implement. Evidently some baptized Christians were addicted to watching as the blood of animals and humans flowed freely. . . . It is doubtful that the Christians’ repudiation of the most popular form of mass entertainment enhanced their missional prospects! Other consequences of patience were experienced by families who said no to abortions or to putting unwanted infants to death by exposure. And of course the prohibition on taking life had an effect on Christians in the Roman legions.
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