Drum roll, please – Paperback Now Out ! ! !
 

        The paperback version of Consistently Opposing Killing: From Abortion to Assisted Suicide, the Death Penalty, and War, can now be ordered. While the hardcover from a reputable publisher is still available for libraries (at a new lower price), the more reasonably-priced paperback, arranged through a print-on-demand publisher, can be used for: 
 

• Gifts to larger numbers of people
• Supplemental texts in appropriate courses
• Sale at literature booths and tables
• Book clubs and study groups
• Those who haven’t read it before because its price was too high

 
        Organizations wanting a discount for bulk purchases can call (US) 1-800-288-4677, ext. 5022. 

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     CL Members Report Local Opportunities
       
        Shelley Douglas announces a conference in Birmingham, Alabama – “Matters of Life and Death: Alternatives to the Death Penalty,” Feb. 18-19.
        An initiative petition drive in Kansas City, Missouri, seeks to place a referendum on the ballot prohibiting a new plant, financed by municipal bonds, from producing nuclear weapons components.
        CL Endorser Dr. David Gushee will speak at the interfaith gathering Toward a Moral Consensus Against Torture in Durham, NC, on March 25-26.

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 In the News – “Forcible Rape” and H.R. 3
 
        A firestorm of criticism arose with the original wording of the No Taxpayer Funding of Abortion Act: “forcible rape” for the longstanding rape-and-incest exception. Critics said this implied some kinds of rape might be tolerable, but of course this was far from the sponsors’ intent. Accordingly, the term “forcible” has been dropped in favor of the original Hyde Amendment language.
         This exception entails a problem: the primary case against abortion is that it’s killing a child, and a child conceived through rape or incest deserves no less respect than any other. Yet this is legislation, where compromises are common for practical reasons. Here we could make an analogy with the death penalty: those who oppose all capital punishment might still try legislatively to limit it to narrowly-defined kinds of murder, and consider it progress that we no longer hang pickpockets.  The final goal of eliminating killing may not be achieved yet, but progress is made toward that goal.         

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Quotation of the Week
David Gushee (CL Endorser)
“Common Ground on Abortion?”in Prism, Jan/Feb 2011, page 4
Commenting on his experience at the Princeton life/choice dialog conference
Pictured at the conference with Frances Kissling
 
        “I was laughed off [by pro-choicers] when I claimed that abortion places on women the burdens of the sexual revolution’s ‘liberation.’ But as a man I totally and viscerally understand that the availability of abortion and the leverage a man has to demand it of ‘his’ lover enables us to exploit our access to women’s bodies without having to pay the ultimate price if it results in an unwanted pregnancy. The pro-choice side can talk about women’s moral agency all day long, but moral decision making happens in contexts of power. To the extent that a man has power or leverage in a relationship with a woman, he can affect or sometimes even direct her decision to have an abortion.”