This letter was written in response to an editorial by Frances Kissling, president of Catholics for a Free Choice, which was highly critical of the Seamless Garment Network for our position against abortion. It has been sent to the National Catholic Reporter for publication and also appears in Harmony Magazine. An Open Letter to Frances Kissling and Catholics for a Free Choice: Frances Kissling's letter to the National Catholic Reporter (5/19/00) includes several misconceptions about the Seamless Garment Network (SGN) and those who promote a consistent life ethic.         The SGN opposes all forms of violence and seeks to find creative, nonviolent solutions to problems we face both as individuals and as a global family. Specifically the SGN addresses seven life issues: war, poverty, abortion, racism, the arms race, the death penalty and euthanasia. We do not consider these seven issues to be one and the same. Rather we believe they are linked by a common thread - all result in the use of violence to try to solve real, troubling problems. However most SGN member groups and individuals do not work collectively on all issues or necessarily weigh them equally. What we do agree upon is that, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Consistent life ethic proponents recognize the need to be consistent in our approach to life issues. Some members work on legislative solutions, others provide direct service, still others participate in nonviolent civil disobedience to try to bring about a nonviolent society. While each action cannot possibly address all of our issues, we consistently try to show the links between the issues and the promise of nonviolence to cure our world of these ills. Many in the SGN see abortion (the issue about which Ms. Kissling criticized the SGN) as misogyny. As long as women are the bearers of primary responsibility for child rearing, we can be "kept in our place". As long as men have the "easy out" of offering abortion as a solution to unwanted pregnancy, women will not be offered any other real solutions. How is this situation a good deal for women? Where is the choice inherent in the pro-choice argument if a man gets off the hook by merely agreeing to pay for half the abortion? How does this better the place of women in our society? I've known far too many women who were pressured into abortions by their husbands, lovers, parents or bosses to ever be able to see abortion as a matter of "free choice." Yes, some women freely choose it, but far too many see it as their only "choice". Unless we offer real choices to women with problem pregnancies, all we are giving them is rhetoric. The misogyny of abortion doesn't end there. Although studies are few and far between due to self-censoring by the scientific community, there is evidence that abortion is dangerous to women's health -- physically, emotionally and spiritually. A recent British study draws a conclusive link between a history of abortion and an increased incidence of breast cancer. Other studies have pointed to fertility problems and miscarriage and clinical depression to name just a few of the consequences of abortion. To say SGN is unconcerned about violence against women is to absolutely misunderstand our message. We are concerned about violence against women on many different levels, in individual relationships as well as in society through poverty, racism and the death penalty, in medicine through abortion and euthanasia, and globally through the arms race and war. Of course we are also concerned about violence against children, born and not yet born, and violence against men. Ms. Kissling is right; we don't differentiate. We are opposed to all violence against all people. Kissling argues that the SGN's "ideology ... reinforces a negative view of women by comparing their decisions about abortion with the decisions presidents, generals, soldiers and jailers make to take the life of persons in war and capital punishment." We do not see each act of violence as the same, or hold each perpetrator of violence as equally culpable. That's far too simplistic. Of course a woman who decides to have an abortion is not the same as a president who decides to bomb a country "back to the stone age". Few would argue that these acts are morally equivalent. But the bottom line remains -- abortion and war cause death. As long as we choose to solve our problems with violence, the cycle of violence continues. The SGN is a coalition made up of individuals and member organizations all working together, as our mission statement says, "to maintain a cooperative spirit of peace, reconciliation and respect in protecting the unprotected." We have come together to be a witness for the priceless value of all human life, to stand against the many ways it is threatened, and in so doing, to build a world without violence. In Peace, For Life, Mary S. Rider Executive Director Seamless Garment Network Back to Our Library...                     |  home  |  action  |  research  |  our library  |  members  |  our video  |  products  |  join  |  contact us  |  our links