“Should We Stop Using Robots That Randomly Kill Children?”        
       

        The American Conservative has run an excellent article called “Pro-life Means Anti-Drone” that directly connects abortion and killing by drone, because both use similar excuses to kill innocent children.
 
 

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Victoria Kennedy: Life-Ending Ballot Question is Cruel  
 
        Attorney Victoria Reggie Kennedy is the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s widow, and she had some sharp yet gentle words to say against the assisted suicide measure in her state of Massachusetts. On October 27, the Cape Cod Times published an opinion piece by her entitled, “Question 2 Insults Kennedy’s Memory.” The story of this opinion piece was picked up in several Massachusetts papers. Conservatives have longed tied abortion and euthanasia and opposed them both. Although abortion isn’t mentioned by Kennedy, her piece is a clear example of a liberal voice against euthanasia. This development will help us transcend political labels and focus on the merits of the case involved in the issues themselves.
 

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Death Penalty, Poverty, and Racism
 
 
        CL board member Lisa Stiller was able to represent us at a speaking event with CL Endorser Sr. Helen Prejean last week in Oregon. Lisa reports: “Sr. Helen spoke of the close relationship between poverty, racism, and substance abuse on both crime and death penalty sentencing. She also spoke passionately about the victims, their families, and the crimes that were committed. The families of those on death row also suffer, she said. We put people on death row, and families keep waiting and waiting. What does that say about us? Part of the problem is that the death penalty is available, so victim's families and prosecutors go after it. We don't deal with poverty, with the roots of violence, but we do build prisons. Sr. Helen encouraged people to look at the way we use resources for life vs. death."
        Watch the election news to see how Proposition 34, the proposal to abolish the state’s death penalty, fares in California.
  
 

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Quotation of the Week
Victoria Reggie Kennedy
“Question 2 Insults Kennedy’s Memory,” Cape Cod Times, October 27, 2012
 
        “My late husband Sen. Edward Kennedy called quality, affordable health care for all the cause of his life. Question 2 turns his vision of health care for all on its head by asking us to endorse patient suicide — not patient care — as our public policy for dealing with pain and the financial burdens of care at the end of life. We're better than that. We should expand palliative care, pain management, nursing care and hospice, not trade the dignity and life of a human being for the bottom line.
        Most of us wish for a good and happy death, with as little pain as possible, surrounded by loved ones . . . But under Question 2, what you get instead is a prescription for up to 100 capsules, dispensed by a pharmacist, taken without medical supervision, followed by death, perhaps alone. That seems harsh and extreme to me . . . if Question 2 passes I can't help but feel we're sending the message that [the terminally ill are] not even entitled to a chance. A chance to have more time with their loved ones. . . .  A chance to be surrounded by family or clergy or a doctor when the end does come. That seems cruel to me. And lonely. And sad.”