??More on Maya Angelou
 
        Maya Angelou’s life story has been inspiring to many pro-lifers; see a more detailed story by Dave Andrusko of National Right to Life News, “Maya Angelou’s Pro-life Journey.” Places such as LifeNews and Alveda King’s blog also expanded on the story of the son she had at age16.
        Because she did endorse the CL Mission Statement several years ago, other stories have given us some attention. We quote from the one in The National Review below: “Maya Angelou’s Place on the Prolife Left.”  Massachusetts Citizens for Life also covered us in positive terms: “Maya Angelou, Abortion, and the Need for a Pro-Life Left.”
        Unfortunately, the story is more complicated. Jill Stanek also ran a piece on “Maya Angelou Chose Life,” but included an update that indicates what Maya chose in her personal life wasn’t reflected in her political views. CL member group Secular Prolife had a June 2 blog on how the life was inspiring but the abortion-related political activities weren’t. This information several years ago is why we felt, with heavy heart, that we would no longer publicize her endorsement, though she never withdrew it.
          But we are delighted to see all the commentary that her life has engendered.  
 

 
Documentation for Consistent Life Ethic in Early Church
 
      The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment was written by CL Endorser and Evangelical scholar Ron Sider. CL Endorser and fellow Evangelical scholar David Gushee comments: "An exceedingly careful, measured study of the literary evidence left by the early church on the morality of killing. It should prove to be authoritative in this field.”
        The publisher explains, “Noted theologian Ron Sider lets the testimony of the early church speak in the first of a three-volume series on biblical peacemaking. This volume offers a thorough, comprehensive treatment on topics of perennial concern--war, abortion, and capital punishment--providing English translations for all extant data directly relevant to the treatment of these issues by the early church until Constantine.”


        CL sympathizers may want to not only purchase the book for themselves, but for their church libraries and similar places. In the same area, CL board member and Mennonite Rob Arner has published Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity. See also our book page for a wide range of topics.
 

 
Quotation of the Week
Nicholas Frankovich, National Review, (a conservative magazine), May 29, 2014
 
Commenting on our Mission Statement – first criticizing, yet then offering insight:
 
        The cogency of the statement was damaged by the inclusion of everything and the kitchen sink. The idea, apparently, was to pad the list with Bad Things that the Left assumed it owned the exclusive license to oppose. . . . The effect would have been intellectually more compelling had the aim been to focus attention more narrowly, on the degree to which pacifism and anti-abortion sentiment mingle — not that they are linked by an iron logic. They do, however, share a sensibility.
        That is the intersection where we find, for example, devout Mennonites, like the Hahn family, small-business owners who have taken to the Supreme Court their objection to the HHS “contraception mandate,” which forces them to participate in the procurement of birth-control drugs that may act as abortifacients. In a different context (say, the Vietnam War era), the political identity that the world would assign to such individuals would be flipped: Invoking the same principle, against the taking of human life, they would register their conscientious objection to military service, and the Left would praise their courage.