Leftists and the
Consistent Life Ethic
“You don't have to teach people how to be human. You have to teach them how to stop being inhuman.”
–Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver
Leftists stand for social justice and equality. They fight for public policies that will redirect help and assistance to the much-neglected poor and vulnerable members of society.
"To me, what socialism means is to guarantee a basic level of dignity. It's asserting the value of saying that the America we want and the America that we are proud of is one in which all children can access a dignified education. It's one in which no person is too poor to have the medicines they need to live."
–Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018
These principles are why leftists generally oppose the devaluation and destruction of human life, particularly when it comes to systemic violence. This leads many to work for an end to the death penalty, police brutality, the use of torture, and unjust war. Rightfully so, most leftists recognize that we must defend the dignity of vulnerable populations when they are threatened by the powerful.
Death penalty
"Although I have suffered the loss of two family members by assassination, I remain firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses. An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation.”
Police Brutality
"The impunity of police violence is a systemic problem we must face to save lives. Police brutality is now a leading cause of death for young Black men in the US. The status quo is killing us."
War
"It is not enough to say 'We must not wage war. ' It is necessary to love peace and sacrifice for it. We must concentrate not merely on the negative expulsion of war, but the positive affirmation of peace."
Leftists can embrace the Consistent Life Ethic by recognizing the human dignity of every human being. The Consistent Life Ethic is a philosophy that values and respects human life at all times, in all places, and in every circumstance. This means defending the dignity of every individual, including those threatened by the violence of abortion or euthanasia.
This does not contradict a progressive political ideology that values equality, autonomy, and nondiscrimination. Leftists who embrace the Consistent Life Ethic live out their progressive values by standing up for the dignity of anyone whose life is being threatened.
On Abortion
While the abortion debate today is typically characterized as the right-wing being against abortion and the left-wing supporting it, the debate was much more diverse before the Roe v. Wade decision. Marxists, progressives, and feminists, well aware of the eugenic potential of widely available abortion on poor and minority women, criticized the surge of abortion laws often impulsed by business interests and all-male legislatures. Marxist materialist analyses correctly predicted that legalized abortion would simply allow the logic of the capitalist economy to shift the burden of regulating the reserve army of labor from direct state violence to the indirect, individualized violence of a forced “choice” between abortion or poverty.
The Canadian Party of Labour, a Marxist party, wrote in the early 1970s:
“If the police were to march into a working class community to take away the pregnant women to a hospital and force them to undergo an abortion, everyone would be up in arms over this outrage. Yet when the ruling class sets things up economically to have the same effect, many so-called leftists even encourage this outrage. Marxists have always recognized that the economics of capitalism is the major force oppressing the working class; the police and military power is only secondary. The economics of capitalism right now is forcing millions of working class families to undergo abortions to exterminate their future offspring. Far from a step toward the liberation of women, this is another horrible oppressive chain around our neck. …When the ruling class makes abortion easy and cheap, relative to childbirth, what do we have — forced abortion… Under these conditions abortion is no more voluntary than working in an unsafe auto plant is voluntary…Instead of fighting for conditions that make it easier for working class families to have kids, the abortionists play into the hands of the ruling class that wants to limit our offspring at this point in history.”
Beyond the question of coercion, many leftists have opposed abortion based simply on the fact that it kills human beings. Civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer put it bluntly in 1969 when she called abortion "legal murder." Hamer was a survivor of police brutality, white supremacist attacks, and forced sterilization; she intimately understood the pain of racial and reproductive injustice, and she refused to leave any human being behind in her advocacy. In her words, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free.”
Socialists generally oppose capital punishment, torture, and war...
As Socialists, we reject the kind of imperial overreach that is usually fueled by military might and heavy defense spending. We believe that war can be avoided if militarism is eliminated and the myths surrounding WMD's protective functions are debunked. Our non-violent principles and common sense lead us to believe that we should aim to solve international conflict without the loss of thousands of human lives through violent battles. We respect the lives and dignity of both American and foreign soldiers by favoring diplomacy to deter global threats and promote peace. We are socialists because we reject discrimination based on race and sex, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo. Upholding the same value for human life, Socialists nationwide have been fighting to end cruel and unforgiving executions of inmates on death row. It is important that we continue to push our politicians to act on these convictions by stopping drone attacks, de-militarizing our economy, ending capital punishment, abolishing for-profit prisons, and closing Guantanamo Bay.
free download of our pamphlet "socialists & the consistent life ethic"
according to non-violence principles, socialists should also oppose abortion, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research...
It is vital that we ask our politicians to recognize the inherent dignity and rights of all human beings, not just the rights of victims to war, torture, and capital punishment. If we are truly to stand for the defenseless and the marginalized, we need to fight for the lives of preborn human beings, and for the lives of the sick and elderly as well. We need to demand that Socialists adopt an opposition to abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and physician assisted suicide.
"...but Women need abortion in order to achieve success in school and the workplace!"
Four decades after Roe, pregnant women still suffer from discrimination in school and the workplace, women still struggle to earn equal pay for equal work and don’t have guaranteed paid leave. We need to attack these injustices directly with sustainable solutions instead of attacking the lives of human beings in the womb.
"...But By defunding abortion providers, you are taking away women’s access to healthcare!"
The health needs of women comprise much more than just pelvic exams, PAP smears, STD tests, UTI inspections, manual breast exams and birth control. However, these limited services are the only things Planned Parenthood offers [A]. Federally Qualified Health Centers offer all those services and more fully comprehensive healthcare vital to the health of women [B]. FQHCs outnumber Planned Parenthoods 13 to 1 and serve 22.8 million people yearly (compared to PP’s 2.8 million) [C, D]. Beyond this,
it is important to recognize that the government shouldn’t contract with an organization that kills human beings.
"...But Without embryonic stem cell research, we lose the potential for lifesaving treatments!"
Adult stem cells have been used successfully in human therapies for years, but embryonic stem cell therapies have proven medically problematic at best, and deadly at worst. Additionally, recent advances have allowed us to create induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are similar to embryonic stem cells in both form and function [E], but don’t require the destruction of a human’s life in their creation. It is important for us to respect the lives of humans in their early embryonic life like those
of any other human beings and explore research and treatment options that do not require their destruction.
"...But The disabled should have the right to die!"
While pain is often cited as the primary reason people advocate for assisted suicide, Oregon doctors did not report this as any of the top five reasons they issue le- thal prescriptions. Instead, “loss of autonomy”, “less able to engage in activities”, and other issues of disability were listed as the top reasons [F]. It is clear that assisted suicide is the product of a society which devalues the lives of people with disabilities. It is important to stand against these attitudes and respect the life and dignity of all individuals by providing holistic and comprehensive care to the sick instead of reinforcing the stigmatization of impairment by allowing them to kill themselves.
WORKS CITED
[A] Planned Parenthood Federation of America. http://www.plannedparenthood.org
[B] Medicare Benefit Policy Manual.
https://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and-Guidance/Guidance/Manuals/Downloads/bp102c13.pdf
[C] HRSA National Data, 2013-2014. http://bphc.hrsa.gov/uds/datacenter. aspx?q=tall&year=2014&state
[D] Planned Parenthood Annual Report, 2013-2014.
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/6714/1996/2641/2013-2014_Annual_Report_FINAL_WEB_VERSION.pdf
[E] Takahashi et al., 2007. Induction of pluripotent stem cells from adult human fibroblasts by defined factors. Cell, 131 (2007), pp.
861–872
[F] Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act—2013. http://public.health.oregon.gov/ProviderPartnerResources/EvaluationResearch/DeathwithDignityAct/Documents/year16.pdf