Female Feticide
 
        Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter had this exchange in an interview about his new book on women’s rights on the PBS News Hour on March 26, 2014:
 
JIMMY CARTER: And I think the most horrible statistic that’s included in this book that is quite accurate is that there — there have been about 160 million little baby girls killed in this generation by their own parents because they didn’t want to have girls. They wanted boys.
 
JUDY WOODRUFF: By abortions, you mean?
 
JIMMY CARTER: And that includes most recently abortions, because now, with the advent of sonograms even in the poorest countries, they can detect the sex of a fetus when it’s being developed, and they abort it. Otherwise, they just wait until the girl is born and then strangle her to death.
 

 
Wild Goose Festival
 
        The Wild Goose Festival is a festival of emergent and progressive Christians with a deep commitment to social justice. The festival includes music, talks, art, dance, and numerous opportunities to dialogue with others. This is probably one if the friendliest gatherings: people talk to each other in restroom lines, potluck lines, and during late night phone charging sessions.  It will be held this year in Hot Springs, NC June 26-29. CL had a highly successful exhibit last year, and plans to again this year. We are looking for someone to work with our Conferences Coordinator to staff the exhibit table, which would include a pass to the Festival. Please let us know if you are interested.
 

 

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Blog       
 
        The web site “Political Jesus” posted a blog on the consistent life ethic, with space for commenting. It’s called, “The Pro-life Progressive: An Endangered Species?”
 

Beyond the Stethoscope
 
          When trying to prevent violence by showing the humanity of war victims or any other targets of violence, photos are better than drawings or word descriptions. Video is better than still shots. For unborn children, the web has plenty of such videos of other people’s children. Now modern technology has advanced to make the reality of the humanity of the unborn child all the clearer: there’s a smartphone app, the Bellabeat Tracking System, that lets a woman with a microphone and amplifier hooked to her phone and placed on her belly hear the heartbeat of her own child. She can do this whenever and wherever she wants, and she can share it with others. The app also gives a colorful display in real time of her baby’s vital signs.
   

 
Tragedy or Triumph?
 
        CL member Rosemarie Stith has put together a video of her artwork.
 
Artist’s statement: Tragedy is simple in its depiction of the relationship between mother and unborn child, each ceramic figure clean like a child's wooden puzzle piece. The removal of the child, left askew, is a portrayal of abortion.  The mother is left empty. Triumph appears to celebrate the mother’s domination over the fetal child, but this domination dehumanizes the mother rather than the child.
 

 

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Quotation of the Week
“Samira,” aged 28
From A devastating toll: The impact of three years of war on the health of Syria’s children, page 6. published by Save the Children, 2014
 
        My husband was killed during the fighting and I had to leave my village with my four children. I was five months pregnant and it took me two months to get to this shelter. Throughout my entire journey my children and I were bitterly cold and hungry. When I arrived I went into early labour in my seventh month. There was no hospital or medical staff nearby so the other women helped me. My baby was born so prematurely and there was no special care to help him survive. He lived just two hours [after birth].