BY NICHOLAS NEAL In 2011, one of the greatest blows against the sanctity of human life and the rule of law was struck. On September 30th, the Obama administration authorized the assassination of the American-born Al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki. The drone strike in Yemen which killed Awlaki also killed Samir Khan, another U.S. citizen who had been an editor for the Al-Qaeda magazine Inspire. Two weeks later, Anwar al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son was killed in a drone strike

BY AIMEE BEDOY if you believe in the dignity of human life -- how can you sit idly by, while thousands and millions of humans die by the hand of others? the homicide is ringing in my ears -- -- deafening. their silence is louder than your rhetoric, their screams no longer present. can you hear them? the cause bears no difference if it be at another's behest homicide never looked so pretty wrapped up in nice words like "choice" and "pre-emptive defense," like "preventative mea

BY AIMEE BEDOY I have a suggestion for the various organizations of the pro-life and pro-peace world. They are based purely on observation, and in that regard they are empirical and of course they are not scientific or statistical studies. But I want to tell you an amalgamation of stories, and then lessons I have learned from working with young people in the world today. The March for Life is seen as the pinnacle of the pro-life year. It is probably the largest event of it

BY RACHEL MacNAIR, PhD The Religious Society of Friends, more commonly known as the Quakers, was founded in the mid-1600s in England during the religious tumult that brought about a flowering of dissenting views. When a famous early convert, William Penn, received an American colony and named it Pennsylvania, Quakers flocked there for a "Holy Experiment" that lasted several decades before collapsing under the weight of non-Quaker immigration. Still, Quakers were the fifth l

BY NICHOLAS NEAL "The consistent right-to-life position should be to protect the unborn and oppose abortion, to reject the death penalty, and to firmly oppose our foreign policy that promotes an empire requiring aggressive wars that involve thousands of innocent people being killed. We would all be better off for it, and a society dedicated to peace, human life, and prosperity would more likely be achieved." --Ron Paul, Liberty Defined The above quotation -- the closest tha

BY ANGEL ARMSTEAD "You're pregnant again?" I quickly glanced around us. "Quiet. I don't want everyone in Wal-Mart knowing my business." "Okay," she said, quietly this time. "How could you do this, Donna? Your last pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, and now you want to keep this one? You have no money and no job. How could you be so irresponsible?" I had heard this argument a dozen times from a dozen other people. I'd heard it so much that I had a mentally prepared respo

BY AIMEE BEDOY I have to warn you, if you intend to read on, I will spoil an important part of the story's plot. So if you intend to see the movie and want it to be a surprise, please take note and don't read this piece! George Clooney's film The Ides of March was produced as a piece of commentary on politics. And while Hollywood's politics again were placed very blatantly on display, something very shocking happened in the movie that perhaps Hollywood did not quite intend

BY NICHOLAS NEAL During a discussion of abortion, one of my classmates -- a political progressive -- stated that abortion was needed in order to reduce crime. I was shocked. My classmate was most likely opposed to capital punishment and yet she was using reasoning similar to that of death-penalty proponents. Unfortunately this was not the only time I have heard this argument in my discussions with others on abortion. It is more prevalent than I would have expected. This

BY KELSEY HAZZARD "We systematically vilified the Catholic Church and its 'socially backward ideas' and picked on the Catholic hierarchy as the villian in opposing abortion. This theme was played endlessly. . . . And the media drum-fired all this into the American people, persuading them that anyone opposing permissive abortion must be under the influence of the Catholic hierarchy . . . An inference of this tactic was that there were no non-Catholic groups opposing abortion.

BY CAROL CROSSED Chai Ling's book A Heart for Freedom (Tyndale House Publishers, 2011) is a clearly written treatise on Ling's journey from a traditional Chinese family, to Beijing student activist, to American Harvard-educated capitalist, to faith-filled penitent. The lengthy middle part of her book assumes the reader knows more about Chinese Communism than this reader did. Ling struggled at the near cost of her life to make Communism democratic, or at least respectable, t

BY AIMEE BEDOY The cult of celebrity reaches far and wide and covers a multitude of sins, it seems. At least in the United States, fans seem willing to forgive their favorite celebrities their wrongs and will often continue in reverence towards individuals who have been responsible for the harm of others. This has been evinced by Chris Brown's relationship with Rihanna, Ben Roethlisberger's continued fame after sexual assault, and most recently, the defense of Joe Paterno o

BY LISA GROVES No Mad. When I was six years old I deliberately dropped my brand new baby doll into a long-abandoned well in my parents' backyard. It was the same year I made a lavender Christmas tree ornament with the sentiment, "I like alone." When I was twenty-six, an old, old friend, smoking furiously and with unqualified command calmly informed me that it was impossible to love another person unconditionally. If it were possible, she reasoned, if we indeed could love wi

BY SARAH TERZO It is usually assumed, in the abortion debate, that the fundamental difference between the pro-life and pro-choice position is the question of when life begins. Pro-life people point to the scientific fact that the life of each organism begins at conception, when the sperm and egg meet to form a new individual with its own DNA different than that of the mother and father. As this new life implants and begins to grow, it has its own circulatory system, heartbe

BY JULIA SMUCKER Life issues, in any form, have typically proven divisively controversial in general public discourse, and they have been no less so among Catholics, in particular. A more all-encompassing respect for life, which has been articulated in recent decades as a "consistent life ethic," is therefore both a telling indicator of intra-church polemics (particularly in terms of its reception) and a much-needed third way between them. While advocacy of the consistent e

BY NICHOLAS NEAL The most important point in Bell Hooks' chapters 11-15 of Feminism is for Everybody is the connection between violence and patriarchy. The reason why this is more important than, say, her attempts to set a distinction between sexual liberation and sexual promiscuity, is that she references violence's connection to patriarchy both in her chapter about ending violence and in her chapter about parenting. This is also important because it is the issue in which

BY ANNA SAUBER KUNTZ Take a moment and think of one of your favorite pro-lifers. Maybe it's an internationally recognized leader in the movement; maybe it's your friend or relative. Maybe this person saved you from abortion, or saved your child from abortion, or provided an example of strength at a time when you desperately needed one. Think of someone whose influence on your life has been positive and lasting. Think of someone whose very existence makes you thankful or

BY NICHOLAS NEAL On September 21, 2011, Troy Davis was executed after failing to appeal to the Supreme Court for a 22-year death row case that brought the flaws of the death penalty to the nation's consciousness. Seven witnesses had recanted their testimony, thus casting serious doubt upon the case. The fact that he was executed despite this doubt in a Deep South state also brings up the death penalty's controversial record of disproportionate black executions. Finally, th

BY NICHOLAS NEAL There have been some victories and losses this year in regard to personhood. The two major victories were in two states of Mexico, Baja California and San Luis Potosí in September, and the loss was in Mississippi during November. The Mexican Supreme Court ruled that Baja California's personhood amendment was constitutional based on the federalist principles that abortion was under the legislative prerogative of the states within Mexico. [1] This is the exac

BY NICHOLAS NEAL We often hear partisan pundits criticize their opponents for the opponents' inconsistencies about killing people. We hear that pro-life advocates do not respect the sanctity of life in war zones. We hear that peace advocates are not so peaceful when it comes to unborn children. What is the answer to this inconsistency? The simple answer is being consistent. This ideological position is known as the consistent life ethic. The foundation for this ethic is

BY NICHOLAS NEAL The abolition of the death penalty in Illinois began when Governor George Ryan placed a moratorium on capital punishment in the state in 2000, after seeing an alarming number of death row inmates being exonerated. Eleven years later, the Illinois General Assembly passed a bill officially abolishing capital punishment in Illinois. It was then up to Pat Quinn to sign it. Now, although Governor Quinn is a Democrat, he had previously spoken in favor of capital