Climate Change March
 
        Rachel Leigh Peller recently joined the CL Board (welcome, Rachel!) and represented us at the Great March for Climate in New York City on September 20. She reports: “Absolutely amazing. I was struck by a few things: All the references to loving and caring for ‘Our Mother,’ the earth. There were a few great signs with wombs, but I couldn't get a picture. All the youth! In many sections of the crowd I felt old.  People are claiming this is the biggest justice march in a long time, even though it's maybe 1/2 to 2/3 the size of the March for Life each year in Washington D. C. [at which CL always has a contingent of several people]. Overall, I think there was a lot of love for life and living”
 

Photo: Left – Rachel at the march. Right: what her t-shirt says.
No violence to our earth.
No violence to our unborn.
No violence to our partners.
No violence to our enemies.
No violence to our children.
No violence to our prisoners.
No violence to our dying.
No violence. Period.
Design also available in long-sleeved shirts, tote bags, and mugs.

  

 
Freedom from Violence is Reproductive Justice
 
        The graphic says “You deserve to parent your child without fear that he or she will be hurt or killed. Freedom from violence is reproductive justice.” This was in response to the recent events in the town of Ferguson in the U.S. state of Missouri, in which unarmed teenager Michael Brown was fatally shot by a police officer. Without commenting on the specifics of this case, some of which remain unknown, such shootings of African Americans around the United States are depressingly common. This one has aroused major protests.
         We heartily endorse the wording of the sentiment, but the person saying it has a huge blind spot about what she thinks she’s saying. With this graphic Cecile Richards tweeted: “A parent’s right to raise their child in love and safety, and to dream that their child will have every opportunity in the world to grow into a fiercely independent adult, is a fundamental issue of reproductive justice.”
        Amen!
        But Cecile Richards is current president of Planned Parenthood of America. This organization has arranged far more killings of African Americans than the police or even the entire history of the Ku Klux Klan. This denies these unborn children “every opportunity” to grow into any kind of adults. Therefore, according to her own words, Planned Parenthood is a major threat to genuine reproductive justice.    
 
       

 

 
 
 

 
CL Member Groups Weigh In
 
Cheating on Insurance: Democrats for Life has put out a press release commenting on the U.S. Government Accounting Office’s recent distressing report on how insurance companies are not abiding by the law on abortion coverage.   
 
Air Strikes as Recruitment Tool for Terrorists: Pax Christi International co-president Marie Denis says, “"We believe that especially the expansion of bombing is more likely to create significant recruiting bonanza for some of the extremist groups, ISIS included . . . . [it] is very well funded and steps must be taken to identify the sources of their funding and to stop them."
  

 

 Photo of protest of Syrian air strikes.

From left: Manny Hotchkiss, Barbara LaCombe, CL Board member Lisa Stiller, Anne Stephenson, Peg Wills, Gerry Osacho, Mary Ryan-Hotchkiss.
  

 
Quotation of the Week
Sojourners magazine, 1980
 
        The truth is that many poor women do not regard abortion as a real solution but as a brutal substitute for social justice and even as white society’s way of controlling the population of racial minorities.