The Consistent Life Ethic – "All Life Matters"                                              

  
        This is a copy of my "Justice Perspective" article that appeared in the May issue of the Western New York Catholic, the newspaper for the Diocese of Buffalo.          

          
           Early last month three pictures came across my laptop screen on the same day. One was a picture of 11 young Afghani children who had been killed in a NATO raid on a Taliban leader’s house. The second was a photo of a Planned Parenthood executive who, while testifying to the Florida Legislature, could not bring herself to condemn killing babies who had survived a botched abortion. The third was a poster that had images of people who had died from being aborted, bombed, executed, and euthanized. The caption read, “Be Consistent: All Life Matters”.

            All life matters, indeed.  First and foremost in Catholic morality and social doctrine is this theme: respect for human life and the promotion of human dignity. No matter what aspect of Catholic Social Teaching we are discussing, this most basic of principles guides our thinking and our action. In its most popular phrasing, we say that because it is a gift from God, every human life is sacred from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.

            This basic truth has led to a way of thinking about the life and dignity of human persons called the “consistent life ethic”. An abbreviated statement of this ethic is that “all life matters” – ALL life, no matter the circumstances, heritage, ability or disability, color, race, belief, gender, sexual orientation, history, family situation, economic status, country of origin, nationality, illness or strength, or any other aspect of social definition you can think of.

            The “consistent life ethic” was at the heart of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), in which he quotes this long but powerful excerpt from Vatican II’s Gaudium et spes: "Whatever is opposed to life itself, such as any type of murder, genocide, abortion, euthanasia, or willful self-destruction, whatever violates the integrity of the human person, such as mutilation, torments inflicted on body or mind, attempts to coerce the will itself; whatever insults human dignity, such as subhuman living conditions, arbitrary imprisonment, deportation, slavery, prostitution, the selling of women and children; as well as disgraceful working conditions, where people are treated as mere instruments of gain rather than as free and responsible persons; all these things and others like them are infamies indeed.”

            The “consistent life ethic” presents a great challenge to us: it calls us to defend life and human dignity in ways that are sometimes counter-cultural or, at least, at odds with popular, or prevalent, or political attitudes. As clear as it is to oppose abortion, we are also called to oppose capital punishment. While we speak out against euthanasia, we have to simultaneously be against the use of drones that indiscriminately kill civilians as well as combatants. If we are going to be credible when we contest embryonic stem cell research, we have to just as forcefully be in opposition to the continued proliferation of nuclear weapons that are built to wipe out millions of people at one time.

            The “consistent life ethic”, although basic to an understanding of Catholic Social Doctrine, tests the limits of our resolve to defend life. It is simply not enough for us to be pro-life on some issues; we have to be pro-life on all issues. We must be consistent in our opposition to everything that demeans or diminishes life or reduces human dignity – from abortion to poverty, from euthanasia to war. Our faith would remind us of this simple truth: “Be Consistent: All Life Matters”.