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Open Blog: Postings are the opinion of the essayist. FCLNY is extremely grateful for the opinions offered and invite others to submit essays to: info@fclny.org. FCLNY recognizes that within the community of subscribers to the consistent life ethic there is a diversity of views as to how this ethic might be implemented in culture, philosophy and law. Not all views necessarily hinge on FCLNY’s opposition to publicly-sanctioned lethal violence. Some may expand that view. Others may narrow that view. Our open blog allows FCLNY supporters and guest essayists to explore these differences in order to achieve greater understanding between peers and within our communities. __________________________________________________________________ Author Britani Anthony holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Georgia State University. She is a member of the AND Campaign's Whole-Life Project. “4 Reasons Men Must Be Holistically Pro-Life” “No ovaries or uterus, no opinion” is a common pro-abortion rights mantra yelled more often than spoken in order to shut a pro-life man up. Though it actually can’t be used against pro-life women who have an opposing view that values human life from conception onwards, some still try anyway. It Takes Two to Tango As women, we can’t get pregnant by ourselves. Even for those (of us) who utilize sperm banks because we want to have children by any means necessary, a man is still needed to create another human being with us even if not in the traditional sense. But these children are not just ours, they also have fathers; fathers who absolutely need to take equal responsibility to raise and support them as we are called to do. Parenting should never be a one person job; it was never meant to be that way. Holistically Pro-Life To be holistically pro-life means that as we value human life from conception in the womb to natural death and care for mothers and their babies, we also recognize and address other societal issues (maternal mortality; racism; poverty; classism; lack of access to affordable healthcare and childcare; living wages; underemployment, unemployment, etc.) and individual situations (abusive and unsupportive partners and other family members; less than ideal living situations; homelessness; internal and external pressures and expectations, etc.) that can influence women’s decisions to abort their children. In order to address why men must be holistically pro-life, we must first unapologetically reiterate the fact that abortion is wrong because of one undeniable and elementary fact: it is the intentional killing of a preborn human being. 4 Reasons Men Must Be Holistically Pro-Life Pro-life Men Help Save Lives In Amy Gentile’s 2014 Social Work Theses on “The Impact of Partner Support In Abortion”, she cites Ney, P., Peeters-ney, M.A., Fung, T., & Sheils, C. (2013) as having “found that if a partner is present and not supportive, the abortion rate is four times greater than if the partner is present and supportive. Therefore, a lack of partner support has been significantly associated with higher rates of abortion and miscarriage.” In Gentile’s same theses, she also cited that, “In a study performed by Shuping, M. (2011), 76% of women stated they would have made a different choice if others had encouraged them differently. These findings illustrate the fact that women often feel abortion is their only option due to their partner’s feelings towards the pregnancy.” (Shuping, 2011). A man’s voice is important because his silence will always speak volumes. Because pro-life men have the potential to save literal lives, women and children will always fare better in society, and life in general, when men are truly lovingly, compassionately, and empathetically pro-life. The current legislation in many places is not conducive to women and children flourishing because among the male legislators, there are not more holistically pro-life men in positions of power and authority seeking to create a healthier and safer society for us and our children. If you have ever met a holistically pro-life man, he seeks to be consistent in his life ethic and will advocate for all of the needs that mothers and their children need to not merely survive, but THRIVE in life. As much as postmodern pro-abortion feminists want to talk about the evils of patriarchy through the lens of gender oppression (and we absolutely should!), they unfortunately do not also see how oppressive abortion truly is as well. Instead of advocating for us to be treated with equal dignity and respect, here some are telling women that we should want to “be like men” and that in order to be “equal” to men and make it in society, we should have the right to kill our innocent babies in our wombs. Instead of acknowledging and appreciating the beautiful differences between men and women while advocating for women to not be discriminated against because we can and may become pregnant at some point in our lives, we are pushing for the spiritual and physical trauma and death of human beings inside and outside of the womb. Pro-life men who empathize and seek to understand women, our bodies, our experiences, and especially what we go through during pregnancy, will also emphasize how important partner support is during and after a woman’s pregnancy for us and our babies. They will want to provide that support so that we will feel happier, supported, and less stressed, which will help our children as well. We must also not forget that abortion affects men as well. The aftermath is not the exact same as it is for women because they cannot get pregnant and the trauma of aborting a child does not affect them in the same physical way. But this does not mean that men’s lives are not forever affected and changed after an abortion. “Male responses to a partner’s abortion include grief, guilt, depression, anxiety, feelings of repressed emotions, helplessness/voicelessness/powerlessness, post-traumatic stress, anger and relationship problems (Coyle, 2007).” https://www.usccb.org/prolife/programs/rlp/rue.pdf Whether a man is holistically pro-life because of conviction or conviction plus personal experience, he is actively taking a step towards helping save the lives of men from not supporting the destruction of their children via abortion. Pro-life men have the power to save lives and help create a healthier society for all of us. Pro-Life Men Destroy Negative Stereotypes of Men by Encouraging Good Character & Healthy Masculinity We have all had negative experiences with men whether it was family, “friends”, romantically, in our workplace, on the street, in public, at church and other places of worship/faith, etc. We have been treated with disrespect and hatred; ignored, overlooked, harassed, and even assaulted by boys and men. These experiences have unfortunately led us to create a stereotype and therefore project our experiences onto men who did not and would not seek to cause us or any other girl or woman harm. Hyper masculinity has lied to society and led people, especially men, to believe that being loving, peaceful, kind, gentle, respectful, self-controlled, self-disciplined, selfless, etc. is “feminine” and makes a man weak, passive, and soft. But men actually should embody all of these positive character traits and more because when they do, it will naturally lead them to value life and promote caring for the weak and vulnerable instead of using their strength and power to dominate and destroy others. Encouraging Accountability, Responsibility, Selflessness, & Self-Control Fatherhood, like motherhood, is not the end of someone’s entire life or identity. It is the beginning of a new season and now an extension (not the sum) of who you are. With parenthood comes a new level of love, sacrifice, selflessness, protection, and responsibility, especially as a man. For men, fatherhood is not the end of their lives; it is the beginning of 3 new ones: theirs, the mother of their child(ren), AND the baby’s. When men believe abortion is a good and valid option, it is the opposite of “manning up” and in fact absolves them of their new responsibility if they have gotten a woman pregnant. It also removes the need for self-control and allows post-modern sexual ethics to use human beings merely for pleasure and dispose of anyone who gets in the way of their fleshly pursuits. Destroying Negative Stereotypes Many people are often upset at how monstrous society can make men out to be. Unfortunately these beliefs have come as a result of the power and authority men have in different spaces, yet are often unlikely to hold themselves and each other to a standard of integrity, discipline, accountability, and responsibility. I would argue that one of the ways we can change that narrative is to encourage men to take complete accountability for their actions, responsibility in their lives, embrace empathy, practice compassion, and exhibit care for others especially when it comes to women’s issues and experiences. Growing in these areas will not only help them to be better husbands, partners, fathers, and friends, but HUMAN BEINGS who are free to feel and healthily express a full range of emotions they may have previously been denied or discouraged from doing. Men will not get off scot-free while women are left unsupported and parenting alone. Pro-Life Men Encourage Healthy Male Leadership & Help Dismantle Toxic Patriarchy  Patriarchy & the Abuse & Mistreatment of Women (females?) Patriarchy is defined as “a system of social structures and practices in which men govern, oppress, and exploit women.” This has resulted in a society where girls and women are largely excluded and men are in control. For various reasons, men are going to be in leadership positions more often than women (in many spaces).  This often proves to be problematic especially when those men are not kind, compassionate, thoughtful, considerate, and empathetic so that they are aware of how their privilege as men may be negatively affecting the women around them and in society. We should note that the oppression and abuse of girls and women exists just as much in sacred spaces as it does in secular spaces. Because patriarchy is heavily male-centered, it enables the bad behavior of men: using, abusing, controlling, and dominating girls and women as they please with no severe consequences for their actions and certainly no help for those affected by this mistreatment (Where there is abuse, specifically sexual abuse, girls and women will be forced or coerced into abortions in order for the abuse to continue.) ; sleeping around/hook up culture; abandonment or coercion into abortion if there is a pregnancy; pornography consumption; the support of what is now called “sex work”, while upholding men as superior to women. Pro-Life Men Lead & Protect in Healthy Ways Good men who are in positions of healthy leadership and/or who recognize their privilege as men in a patriarchal society are not seeking to lead or protect because they don’t believe that women can’t speak up for themselves. They are doing so because it is right to speak up for someone who may have less power or privilege than you. Imagine being in a situation where no one recognizes or cares when you are being mistreated and you’re the only one who is defending you. Some people are ok with that, but it shouldn’t be that way. Society is so hell-bent on “justice” and “speaking up for the oppressed”, yet when good men do it and for the pre-born, it’s strangely a problem. Even so, holistically pro-life men seek to lead and protect no matter what because it’s right and human beings deserve it. Pro-Life Men Remind us of Our Need for Good & Healthy Men In the same way women are not primarily here to be mothers, men are not here primarily to be fathers. Parenthood is beautiful, but will not be part of everyone’s story and that’s ok. No one should be defined by their career, gifts, background, or what season of life we are in. Life changes so much that if we put so much weight on any of those things, we will become so unstable and unsure of who we are when our identity is defined by those things. People are here for their own individual purposes that have to do with making the world a better place in some way, shape, or form. Where patriarchy idolizes and pedestalizes men, post-modern feminism makes men completely obsolete. But we should be seeking to create a society where men are valued for who they are, what they bring to the world, and where they are holding themselves and others accountable and to a standard of kindness, integrity, respect, and compassion. Children, families, and societies fare better when good and healthy men are present in people’s lives as friends, brothers, fathers, uncles, mentors, uncles, husbands, leaders, advocates, and beyond. Sources: Gentile, Amy “The Impact of Partner Support in Abortion” https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1092&context=socialwrk_students#:~:text=of%20adolescent%20pregnancies.-,Ney%20et%20al.,et%20al.%2C%202013). Ney, P., Peeters-ney, M.A., Fung, T., & Sheils, C. (2013). How partner support of an adolescent affects her pregnancy outcome. WedMed Central Public Health, 4(2), 1- 22. Shuping, M. (2011). Wantedness and coercion: Key factors in understanding women’s mental health after abortion. Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change, 23(2), 1-8 Citing: Ney et. al (as cited by Gentile, 2014)... (4(2), 1-22) In Amy Gentile’s 2014 Social Work Theses on “The Impact of Partner Support In Abortion”, she cites Ney, P., Peeters-ney, M.A., Fung, T., & Sheils, C. (2013). “How partner support of an adolescent affects her pregnancy outcome.” WedMed Central Public Health, 4(2), 1- 22 “Ney et. al (2013) found that if a partner is present and not supportive, the abortion rate is four times greater than if the partner is present and supportive. Therefore, a lack of partner support has been significantly associated with higher rates of abortion and miscarriage.” “In a study performed by Shuping, M. (2011), 76% of women stated they would have made a different choice if others had encouraged them differently. These findings illustrate the fact that women often feel abortion is their only option due to their partner’s feelings towards the pregnancy. (Shuping, 2011).” Shuping, M. (2011). Wantedness and coercion: Key factors in understanding women’s mental health after abortion. Association for Interdisciplinary Research in Values and Social Change, 23(2), 1-8. Photo by Kampus Production: https://www.pexels.com/photo/joyful-trendy-young-diverse-guys-taking-self-portrait-on-roof-5935258/

Open Blog: Postings are the opinion of the essayist. FCLNY is extremely grateful for the opinions offered and invite others to submit essays to: info@fclny.org. FCLNY recognizes that within the community of subscribers to the consistent life ethic there is a diversity of views as to how this ethic might be implemented in culture, philosophy and law. Not all views necessarily hinge on FCLNY’s opposition to publicly-sanctioned lethal violence. Some may expand that view. Others may narrow that view. Our open blog allows FCLNY supporters and guest essayists to explore these differences in order to achieve greater understanding between peers and within our communities. __________________________________________________________________ Author wishes to remain anonymous “The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty. A historic and defining feature of social work is the profession’s dual focus on individual well-being in a social context and the well-being of society. Fundamental to social work is attention to the environmental forces that create, contribute to, and address problems in living.” (Read the Code of Ethics, n.d.) One core tenet of the Social Work profession is to allow for the self-determination of the individual – to allow those served to come to their own conclusions and make their own decisions, while the Social Worker acts as a guide to resources and support to facilitate whichever path is taken within the confines of the law. There’s great beauty in this idea. There’s great beauty in regenerative responses to social problems. The kind of response that connects the struggling with positive community, group accountability, resources and aid, and seeks to understand the causes, whether personal, systemic, or both in tandem, that lead to the maintenance of destructive behaviors. This ideal is what attracted me to social work. I was excited to improve lives, be a support for those in struggle, design and implement programs that promote the same, and understand the root causes in our attitudes, ideology, and systems that perpetuates the cycles of poverty and self-destructive behavior. As I made my applications to Social Work programs, however, I came across a glaring contradiction in the social work code of ethics, as it was proposed by the major organizations in the field. The Mainstream View “NASW remains resolute in our commitment to protect reproductive rights and freedoms. NASW affirms all individuals have a right to bodily autonomy, that abortion is health care, and that all individuals have the right to freedom of choice in accessing essential health care services, especially their reproductive health.” (Reproductive Rights are Human Rights, 2022) The National Association of Social Workers, the largest professional body of Social Work in the United States, issued a strong response to the overturn of Roe vs Wade. The Council of Social Work Education (CSWE), which accredits university programs and influences state licensure exams and requirements, echoed this sentiment. It’s great that the NASW stands up for reproductive rights. Unfortunately, they’re too narrow in scope. They’ve failed to make a commitment to the reproductive rights of the fetal human; a commitment to the right to be reproduced. They’ve failed to make a commitment to the fetal human’s bodily autonomy. They’ve failed to consider the right of self-determination to the fetal human. I understand their approach. A woman’s pregnancy is a sensitive, vulnerable time. Many different circumstances add progressive weight to the situation. The burdens, risks, and dangers of pregnancy, by biological necessity, fall more on women. Killing the fetal human, from a purely economic standpoint, will greatly improve the woman’s economic mobility while decreasing her burdens, and allow for greater independence. And the intertwining of the life of the fetus and the mother makes for a more complex situation than if they were biologically separate. Yet none of this will ever possibly overrule the right of an innocent human to live. Reconsidering Directions This isn’t the way the Social Work licensing bodies see the matter. For them, a woman’s choice to abort her child is something left to self-determination, and a Social Worker is required by law and ethical code to submit to that requirement, especially if they work for an organization that receives state-funded grants. This was a major limitation for my ability to pursue Social Work, since so many human services positions, even those not at pregnancy centers or domestic abuse shelters, have a strong possibility of eventually having one faced with a woman seeking an abortion, and then being under legal requirement to provide her information about her (presently legal) option to have one. This can extend as far as referring her to a clinic and transporting her for the performed services. Such a thing was unacceptable for me to do. I was fortunate to consult with faculty and admissions staff at several different programs on this issue. They commonly asked whether it would be acceptable for me to simply refer a client seeking an abortion to another social worker, as this would keep me within the requirements of the law. This, however, wasn’t a viable solution – finding a proxy whom I knew would proceed to do what I was originally supposed to do at my behest doesn’t get me off the hook. Referring them to someone else for abortion referrals validates the decision of abortion, even if I’m not the one doing the talking. When it came down to it, I decided it simply didn’t make sense to pursue social work anymore, seeing as these restrictions would be common in many positions, severely limiting my own professional opportunities. My career search is ongoing, but the issue is so central to any field of human services and healthcare that it won’t be the last time I will brush up against this. There are federal protections in place for direct healthcare workers, but no such ones for the many indirect human service and administrative staff that also play a role (Office of Civil Rights, 2023). As we approach the possibility of having medically assisted suicide legalized in New York, such issues will extend to any place that touches on this. Will therapists be legally mandated to refer their client for suicide assistance? Will social work staff in nursing homes, assisted living centers, centers for those with developmental disabilities, and other vulnerable populations be required to do the same? These laws, besides being unethical and destructive, create substantial limits for the employment of, frankly speaking, most religious persons, plus any secular persons who are skeptical of the ethical viability of assisted suicide. We risk losing devoted employees in civil service, non-profit, and healthcare positions who bring important skills and perspectives by creating legal mandates for conscientious objectors to provide, refer for, and facilitate both abortions and assisted suicides. A Way Forward “Social workers respect and promote the right of clients to self-determination and assist clients in their efforts to identify and clarify their goals. Social workers may limit clients’ right to self-determination when, in the social workers’ professional judgment, clients’ actions or potential actions pose a serious, foreseeable, and imminent risk to themselves or others.” (Read the Code of Ethics, n.d.) The good news is that anti-abortion measures are already written into the NASW code of ethics. A woman with serious intention to seek an abortion, or the man who impregnated her making an effort to have her do the same, should come under the Social Worker’s professional obligation to limit their client’s “right to self-determination” due to the imminent threat to the fetal human. The social worker already does this in the case of, say, a client speaking of serious plans to cause harm to another adult person, or subjecting their children to abuse. If the social work profession understands its duty to protect the fetal life just as well, this authority can be extended to threats of abortion. This highlights that key point that we must make understood in the Social Work profession, upon which the mistake of pro-choice advocates rests: that a Being becomes a Being at the joining of sperm and egg, and so we have responsibility to extend the treatment we give to out-of-womb beings to it as well. This does complicate matters for the pregnant woman and her partner, this is no doubt true, and resources and support must be readily available in the absence of abortion access. The recognition of human personhood beginning at conception, alongside the necessity of universal support for both the fetus and the mother, is essential for the Social Work field to truly encompass its ideals. References: Office for Civil Rights. (2023, January 10). Conscience and Religious Nondiscrimination. HHS.gov. https://www.hhs.gov/conscience/conscience-protections/index.html Read the Code of Ethics. NASW, National Association of Social Workers. (n.d.). https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English Reproductive Rights are Human Rights. NASW, National Association of Social Workers. (2022). https://www.socialworkers.org/Advocacy/Policy-Issues/Reproductive-Rights-Are-Human-Rights "https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/close-up-woman-leading-team_12689863.htm#query=woman%20social%20work&position=1&from_view=search&track=ais

FCLNY's Regional Coordinator Erin Ortega January, 2023, Washington, D.C. For the last 5 years I have been serving in a crisis pregnancy center in the Hudson Valley of NY, about 90 mins north of NYC. We are the only pregnancy center in Orange county and the only one in 4 counties that provides onsite ultrasounds. We serve women from the tristate area. 75% of the hundreds of women I’ve worked with were either considering abortion or determined to have one. We opened a maternity home in March 2020. Overturning Roe is surely a victory. Because any non violent effort made to protect those who cannot protect themselves is a victory. After all, I’ve never met a single woman who wants an abortion. I have met hundreds who are convinced it’s their only choice. Roe is gone but our work in NY, and other “sanctuary” states just got harder. Women are finding out they’re pregnant earlier, and getting abortions more conveniently. Just look at mail order chemical abortion and over the counter pills coming to convenience stores and pharmacies. Women in crisis are more desperate and misinformed than ever before. The time we get to spend with the women in the pregnancy center is often the only time during their entire pregnancy where someone has told them they have the strength to choose life for their babies. We are the only voice who hasn’t told them to abort. They go back to a world where their boyfriend, parents, friends, work, school, and society tell them the easy choice is to abort and that an abortion will bring “everything back to normal.” As Pro-Life Feminists, Whole-Life Advocates, Consistent life Promoters we have our work cut out for us. But outlawing a federal right to abortion did not outlaw the fear, the devastation, the guilt, the shame, the brokenness, the tornado of grief that swirls around many women when they find out they're pregnant, unexpectedly. Overturning Roe did nothing to change the fact that I’ve never had to convince a woman it’s a baby inside her. I have had to encourage, empower, and love each one of them into understanding their capacity to be good mothers, including loving birth mothers. That’s all they want. She says, “I want to keep the baby, but I just can’t right now.” She knows how much sacrifice has to be made, how many sleepless nights, how many days taken off of work, or semesters taken off of school. A child is supposed to cost $200,000 before they hit college. And that was before inflation. Even those who choose abortion seem to feel like that’s a lesser of two evils. “My baby will suffer so I’ll prevent it from suffering,” like a mercy killing. She doesn’t want to cause the baby pain. She wants to give her baby the best life possible, but she feels ill equipped to do that. While every voice around her joins that chorus she’s not strong, equipped enough, loved enough to be a mom Friends, what’s the future? How are we, a group of political misfits and activists who care for mom AS MUCH AS baby ….going to move froward? Roe is gone. That doesn’t mean a thing for me in New York. I’ll tell you how we move forward. We change tactics. We rethink our strategy. We must work together more than ever before to help remove the crisis from the pregnancy, not the pregnancy from the crisis. As long as pregnancies keep happening, abortions will exist. Half of all pregnancies are unplanned, and half of those end up in abortion. But that means the other half are carried to term. We have to reach women and girls before they get to that decision-making time in their lives. No pregnant person has abortion on their bucket list. Abortions are the consequence of years of missteps, lack of sexual education, lack of trust from family and close friends, lack of support, lack of education, and lack of understanding about resources, just to name a few. We have to combat the abortion industrial complex differently now. We can fight the root causes of abortion, we can educate, we can empower, and provide hope. But most of all we can bring an end to abortion through unity and love. From my experience the number one reason women choose life for their unborn children is: SUPPORT. We have to be her support system. One woman said to me “I hear what you’re saying, but at the end of the day, I’m going to be the one up in the middle of the night changing diapers.” It’s takes a village to raise a child. We can be her village. We have to be her village, on the ground, in the trenches, in the heart break and the tears. We have to love her so well, she has no reason to abort. Imagine if women started telling their friends, “I have this amazing group of people, a support system and they can help you too.” What if the narrative became “pro-life people babysit for free.” We can save babies through saving women. No politics, no laws, no violence. Just love. So one day we can truly say “Abortions No More!”

Open Blog: Postings are the opinion of the essayist. FCLNY is extremely grateful for the opinions offered and invite others to submit essays to: info@fclny.org. FCLNY recognizes that within the community of subscribers to the consistent life ethic there is a diversity of views as to how this ethic might be implemented in culture, philosophy and law. Not all views necessarily hinge on FCLNY’s opposition to publicly-sanctioned lethal violence. Some may expand that view. Others may narrow that view. Our open blog allows FCLNY supporters and guest essayists to explore these differences in order to achieve greater understanding between peers and within our communities. __________________________________________________________________ Jesus is Nonviolence incarnate. — Fr. Bernard Haring, C.Ss.R. Hypocrite! Take the plank out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother’s eye. -Matthew 7: 5 Let us remember that Jesus lived his whole life in a land that was occupied by a brutal Roman army. In the first reading in our Lectionary (Isaiah 2, 1-5) the prophet says the Messiah’s mission will be to give instruction in his ways and when we “walk in his paths” the result will be an end to war and militarism. Therefore, we should not be surprised that the real, only and pragmatic answer to our questions about war and how to end it can be found in the Gospel. In the Gospel, Jesus three times commands His disciples to “love your enemies.” (Matt. 6: 44 , Luke 6: 27, 35) Matthew, Mark and Luke record that Jesus answered a question, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” by saying “You must not kill.” (Matt. 19: 18, Mark 10: 19, Luke 18: 20) If actions speak louder than words, the clearest indication of what Jesus would do (remember WWJD?) if he walked the earth in Ukraine today can be found in the account of Gethsemane. Here, Jesus was never armed. He refused Peter’s violent defense of his most innocent person. He healed the wound of his enemy Malchus, the servant of the High Priest who had come with an armed mob and a Roman cohort to arrest him. Jesus surrendered to his enemies without violence, the perfect illustration of “agape your enemies”. There was no time to suggest that Peter negotiate for “multilateral, verifiable disarmament” with the mob and the Roman military. Jesus commanded unilateral disarmament in the face of his impending death. Nonviolent love of enemies does not depend on any reciprocity on the part of the enemy. Agape is willing to suffer without the desire for retaliation. It does not ensure one’s safety. It did not ensure Jesus’ safety, though it did succeed in preventing further bloodshed on that occasion. Jesus refused to kill and he did not allow his disciples to kill. Western Christianity, with few exceptions, has justified war after war for 1700 years out of an idolatry of imperial, royal or state authority. Orthodox Christianity has done likewise since its beginning. The operative reality of all “Christian” just war theories has been to cede prerogative to the governing authority and “support the troops” who are doing the killing, while ignoring the teaching, the Way and the New Commandment of Jesus to love one another as he has loved us. (John 13: 34) The use of violence to solve problems posed by an unwanted pregnancy or an unwanted invader of your country may be legal or not. Unlike human laws, the Gospel Law of Love prescribes no punishment to enforce observance. Love cannot be coerced and the way Jesus loved us sinners included mercy and forgiveness, even for his murderers. Those who choose to observe Jesus’ New Commandment must begin with a steadfast refusal to kill the guilty or the innocent. Jesus did not advocate for laws or treaties to outlaw war. We have such international laws today but they have not worked. Jesus addressed individual conscience. When the Churches teach clearly and with authority what Jesus taught in relation to violence and killing, more people may come to believe and we may yet realize Isaiah’s vision of a disarmed, demilitarized, life affirming world. US Catholics might begin by removing the plank out of our own eye first before pointing out the splinter in the eye of Vladimir Putin and the Russian Orthodox Patriarch, an unholy alliance matched by most US Catholic bishops’ support for Joseph Biden’s militarism and war making. Before this war, it seemed the Church was about to do away with "Christian" just war theory. (CJWT) Rather than bringing back CJWT from the edge of oblivion, this war should end its subversion of the Gospel forever. Let the nonviolent love of Jesus disarm us all! Essayist: Mark Scibilia-Carver Photo by Stacey Franco on Unsplash

Open Blog: Postings are the opinion of the essayist. FCLNY is extremely grateful for the opinions offered and invite others to submit essays to: info@fclny.org. FCLNY recognizes that within the community of subscribers to the consistent life ethic there is a diversity of views as to how this ethic might be implemented in culture, philosophy and law. Not all views necessarily hinge on FCLNY’s opposition to publicly-sanctioned lethal violence. Some may expand that view. Others may narrow that view. Our open blog allows FCLNY supporters and guest essayists to explore these differences in order to achieve greater understanding between peers and within our communities. __________________________________________________________________ Proposed South Carolina Equal Protection Act of 2023 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/03/14/south-carolina-bill-abortion-death-penalty/11471997002/ Response by Margaret Smerbeck, Feminists Choosing Life of New York, Supporter I am still shaking my head in disbelief regarding a proposed South Carolina bill advocating the death penalty for women who’ve had abortions. Anyone who believes in a consistent life ethic should be outraged at this hypocrisy. SC Rep. Rob Harris, the bill’s author, stated, “If we define it as life…it needs to be protected like any other life.” Harris should apply that same definition of life to those he claims the state condemn to death. Protecting human life from womb to tomb includes death row inmates. While we’re at it, examine the shamefully disproportionate percentage of people of color on death row. Lack of adequate representation, racial profiling and overall resources lead to this discrepancy. Can we possibly take a break from the endless debate of laws and rights and find more ways to support life choices of those already marginalized? We can’t even come close to calling our country “great” if even just one state has the death penalty. Credit: Pix4Free.org

For Immediate Release: February 20, 2023 Media Contact: Emily Cappello, 716 261-6786, info@fclny.org In what appears to be a flagrant disregard for NY’s Open Meetings Law, representatives of Western New Yorkers hosted a ‘public’ town hall zoom meeting concerning local allocations relevant to NY’s 2024 budget, set for approval on April 1, 2023. “Of the four NY legislators that hosted the event, only two bothered to provide the general public with any notification, and the two that did, gave constituents just over twenty-four hours notice on their social media" claims Cecelia Lester, constituent of NY Senator Jeremy Cooney, one of the host legislators of the town hall. "Three of the host legislators claimed to have emailed those subscribed to their email notification lists, but that excludes the general public and those constituents not subscribed," states Lester. “NY’s Open Meetings Law was enacted for good reason,” says Michele Sterlace, Executive Director of Feminists Choosing Life of New York (FCLNY). “Proper notice of public meetings discussing public policy is “essential to the maintenance of a democratic society,” according to the laws own words,” she adds. “When members of the public are prevented from engaging, our policies reflect special interests. NY’s proposed 2024 budget contains allocations many New Yorkers oppose, including 25 million dollars for abortion access as well as potential allocations for assisted suicide, for example. Pro-life feminists and others have questions and concerns and our voices are being silenced.” According to Lester, vice president of FCLNY: “When I called Senator Cooney’s office in early February I was told I would receive notice of the next budgetary town hall meeting by email. After not receiving any email from Cooney or seeing any public notice posted on his website or social media I called his office and was told the meeting had already occurred. I re-scoured Cooney’s social media and found one tweet, and one Facebook post published on Sunday evening, February 12th, less than two hours before registration ended for the subject open meeting and less than 48 hours before the start of the public meeting on February 13th at 6 PM.” "Lester, along with others similarly situated, listened to the zoom recording of the public meeting after it occurred," says Sterlace. Lester explains: “Not a single criticism of the proposed budget was voiced. No unpolished, plain speaking private citizens were present, people interested in voicing concerns on behalf of their struggling families. No organizations that opposed the policies of the legislators were present either. Yet the meeting opened with all four representatives extolling the necessity of hearing the concerns of constituents in order to fulfill the highest potential of the community and its citizens. One host legislator called the budget a moral document, while another expressed a belief in the primacy of transparency.” “A dangerous disconnect is occurring between our elected representatives and the people,” says Sterlace. According to Lester, “The result is radical bills in NY are proposed and passed, such as NY’s Reproductive Health Act and possibly now, the pending Medical Aid in Dying Act. When legislators control the messaging they hear from constituents— an echo chamber of hyper partisanship reigns. This is why citizens are fleeing at record numbers,” Lester believes. “So many New Yorkers’ needs are unmet. Perhaps this is intentional, to reinforce the echo chamber and radicalize NY even further. What is certain,” Lester adds, “it will be increasingly difficult to craft a budget in NY with fewer and fewer taxpayers.”

“I dream of a world where we can commit our social resources to the development of human life and not to its destruction.” Benazir Bhutto (1953-2007), born into an elite political family in Pakistan, was the first female prime minister of Pakistan and the first elected head of an Islamic State. She studied politics, philosophy and economics at Harvard and Oxford Universities and while in the United States, actively protested the war in Vietnam. In 1977, Bhutto’s father, founder of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was re-elected as Prime Minister, but was soon accused of conspiracy and thrown into jail. At this time, Bhutto was placed under house arrest. Her father was eventually executed, and Benazir, exiled to Great Britain. In 1986, she returned to Pakistan where, at the urging of the PPP, soon began to campaign for political office herself. Benazir’s political agenda included ending hunger, providing reproductive health education for women, reversing gender discrimination and other policies designed to improve the lives of women. She served as Pakistan’s Prime Minister from 1988-1990 and again from 1993-1996. Each time, she was removed from office by the sitting president for unsubstantiated charges of corruption and incompetence. Once again, she was exiled. In 1994, Benazir delivered the keynote address to the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development calling for a global partnership to improve human conditions and increase aid to help stabilize unchecked population growth in Pakistan. “I dream of a Pakistan, of an Asia, of a world where every pregnancy is planned, and every child conceived is nurtured, loved, educated and supported.” She rejected abortion as a method of population control and laid out a plan that instead included efforts to reduce infant mortality, greater education and economic independence for women and increased access to services saying, “empowerment of women is part of the battle.” In 2007, upon returning to Pakistan amid death threats and a deadly suicide bombing, Benazir was assassinated in Rawalpindi on October 18. Following her death, widespread violence erupted. Her suspected assassin was killed in 2009 during a US led drone attack. (Image by Oliver Mark)

Nat Hentoff “Once the sperm and egg meet…you now have a human being…it’s not a kangaroo, it’s not a giraffe, it‘s a human being…therefore if you kill it…you are killing a developing human being.” Nat Hentoff (1925-2017) was a prolific writer and civil libertarian who is best known as an outspoken defender of free speech as well as a preeminent American Jazz Critic. Born and raised in Boston and a graduate of Northeastern and Harvard Universities, Hentoff wrote many books and was a contributor to Downbeat Magazine, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, and the Jazz Times. He also wrote regular columns for the Village Voice and The Washington Times. He came to his pro-life position when covering the Baby Doe case where the courts essentially ruled that some lives are not worth living. He wrote about the abusive experiences of prolife feminists at the 1992 Democratic National Convention and directly criticized Ken Burns for his exclusion of the anti-abortion position of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton in his documentary, Not for Ourselves Alone: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Hentoff was active in the Civil Rights Movement and protested the Vietnam War. In 1972, he called out the New York Times for referring to the North Vietnamese as “the enemy” saying, “It is much easier for Americans to distance themselves psychologically from the daily atrocities done in their name if they keep seeing their victims — including children — … as the enemy.” As a Jewish atheist, Hentoff wrote articles about the Catholic Church and Islam and after the so called Peace Agreement in Darfur, challenged President Bush to form an international coalition to stop the on-going genocide of black Muslims in Darfur. Despite his influence shaping the modern conversation about such important topics as free speech, Hentoff’s greatest joy was jazz music. He interviewed such jazz greats as Duke Ellington and Miles Davis and worked with Billie Holiday and Lester Young in The Sound of Jazz, a televised jazz program that turned out to be the last performance between Holiday and Young. Nat Hentoff was the first non-musician to be named Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts. Hentoff granted an Honorary Doctorate of Law from Northeastern University and was involved with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. He was also the subject of the 2013 documentary, Pleasures of Being Out of Step.

Dear NYS Legislator: Feminists Choosing Life of NY (FCLNY) is a statewide human rights organization that educates on the root causes and impacts of publicly sanctioned lethal violence. We have compiled a ten (10) bill package containing expansive measures regarding maternal and child wellbeing. Please find below pending laws we ask you to carefully consider; eight (8) we urge you to enact, and two (2) we ask you to oppose, on behalf of not only your constituents, but women and children across our great state. Sincerely, FCLNY www.fclny.org VOTE YES! 1. Universal Child Care Act, S7595 and A8623. The cost of day-care in New York is among the least affordable in the country. This act would make childcare fully affordable for all New York families, and increase compensation for child care workers. In 2021, New York’s Child Care Availability Task Force determined that the child care system in NY is in a state of crisis, and in need of a dramatically new approach to addressing unmet needs of working parents or student parents. Under the current Child Care Subsidy Program, families are eligible for financial assistance on an extremely limited basis. In some regions, a family of four with two parents working forty hours per week making minimum wage do not qualify for subsidies, and childcare costs 55.4% of their income. The Child Care Availability Taskforce (CCAT) reports that many child care workers in NY are dramatically underpaid. According to the CCAT, 15% of NY’s child care workforce live below the poverty line and 65% receive public benefits as a result of their low income. This leads to issues of high turnover rates and understaffing within the child care system. This act also proposes a new cost estimation model to accurately pay child care workers and providers for their services, as well as a fund to finance startups in regions where childcare services are unavailable. By increasing child care affordability, NY will be making an investment in the future, since it is estimated that for every $1 spent on child care and education in New York, “$1.86 is generated in additional spending within the state.” 2. Unborn Victims Of Violence Act, S2669 and A5729. Homicide is a leading cause of death for pregnant women, making pregnant women and their unborn children especially vulnerable to violence. Pregnancy increases women’s risk of violence perpetrated by intimate partners, including lethal and non-lethal assaults. These bills would redefine the penal law to include unborn children among those who can be victims of assault or homicide. It would also amend the definition of person, when referring to a victim of assault or homicide, to include "an unborn child at any stage of gestation." There are exceptions in the bill for women who choose to have an abortion and for persons performing legal abortions on consenting women. Bills present question whether mothers could be held criminally liable for assaulting their unborn children, by taking drugs or otherwise self-harming, or by performing self-abortions. For the purpose of these bills, FCLNY believes pregnant women should be exempt from criminal prosecution for any behavior relating to their unborn children, and these bills should be amended accordingly. 3. Assistance Purchasing Diapers For Families In Need, A3451A and S63A. “Not having enough clean diapers exposes a baby to many potential health risks.” Approximately, sixteen percent of all kids nationwide currently live in poverty in the US. That’s 11.6 mil­lion children and the number is growing. “Notably absent from [most] anti-poverty efforts targeting families is an essential staple for the health of children, diapers.” This proposed law creates an allowance for the poorest of parents (TANF eligible) to receive assistance in purchasing diapers for their children. The quarterly allowance will provide parents with up to eighty dollars every three months for every eligible child (infants up to 2 years old). 4. Medicaid Coverage Of Longer Hospital Stays For Maternity Patients And Newborns, S916 and A3386. For decades, 48 hour hospital stays in NY for women and children after birth have been covered by private insurance. This has largely excluded economically disadvantaged women who are covered by Medicaid from receiving the same minimum coverage after delivery. Short hospital stays can be detrimental to the health of the mother and newborn, especially since conditions which affect newborns, including jaundice, are not apparent within the first 24 hours of life. In addition, studies show benefits to both mother and child as a result of longer hospital stays after birth, including, “more stable blood sugar” for infants and less “postpartum depression” for mothers. These pending bills would extend Medicaid coverage of hospital stays for a minimum of 48 hours following childbirth by natural delivery and 96 hours for childbirth by cesarean section. 5. Born Alive Abortion Survivors' Protection Act, S2569 and A4429. The Reproductive Health Act, enacted in 2019, "eradicated all legal protections in law for infants born alive as the result of an abortion procedure," according to NYS legislative memoranda . The CDC reports that infants subject to abortion are sometimes born alive. This lack of protection leaves these born children vulnerable. Under this new proposed law, any health care practitioners present during abortions or attempted abortions are required to "exercise the same degree of care to preserve the life and health of the child" (born alive during abortions or attempted abortions) he or she would render to "any other child born alive at the same gestational age" as well as "ensure the child born alive is immediately transported and admitted to the hospital." A violation of this provision would be a class A misdemeanor. Additionally, an individual who intentionally performs or attempts to perform an overt act that kills a child born alive during a botched abortion would be guilty of intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being. 6. Relates To-Maternal And Infant Mortality And Morbidity, A307-A and S1411-A. In January 2021, the New York State Expert Panel on Postpartum Care, which was created at the recommendation of the Taskforce on Maternal Mortality and Disparate Racial Outcomes, released a report with recommendations. One recommendation includes extending Medicaid complete pregnancy care coverage for a year after giving birth. These bills extend complete pregnancy care coverage provided by Medicaid from 60 days after delivery to a full year. Not only would the bills extend pregnancy care coverage for a woman’s physical health for a full year after delivery, but access to mental health and substance abuse disorder treatments, to reduce maternal mortality and morbidity. The CDC reports that from 2011 to 2015, about 33% of pregnancy-related deaths occurred within one week to one year after delivery, demonstrating that postpartum women are still vulnerable to serious health complications up to one year after giving birth. 7. Parental Notification Of Abortion On A Minor, A3780. A double standard exists in NY relevant to minors or children, their engagement in potentially dangerous activities, and standards utilized for their protection. Parental notification is required in NY when minors get body piercings, their teeth drilled or bone x-rays, but not when they undergo abortion procedures, even invasive surgical abortions. When parental notification laws for abortion were introduced in Minnesota, for example, teens, 15-17 years, became more sexually responsible, abortion rates for these minors markely decreased and birth rates continued to fall for this population. The proposed legislation requires that at least one parent or legal guardian of an un-emancipated minor receive a written notification 48 hours prior to the performance of an abortion. The parental notification requirement within the bill contains the US constitutionally required judicial bypass mechanism. 8. Services For Human Trafficking Victims/ Airports, A9169 and S8262. It is estimated that worldwide, there are 24.9 million victims of human trafficking at any given time. The NYS Interagency Taskforce on Human Trafficking’s most recent report found that in 2019, 1,541 people were confirmed victims of human trafficking in NY alone. Reports from the International Organization for Migration estimate that “almost 80 percent of journeys undertaken by victims trafficked internationally cross through official border points, such as airports and land border control points.” These bills mandate that Port Authority Airports place informational cards and/or signs in a prominent location in their public restrooms. The cards and signs would contain information about services for human trafficking victims and the national human trafficking hotline number. VOTE NO! 9. Pregnancy Resource Center Study, S470 and A5499 . These bills call for a study of only pregnancy resource centers (organizations which provide help to pregnant women-excluding abortion services or abortion related referrals) in order to examine the unmet health and resource needs of pregnant women in NY. The bills further aim to examine the impact of only these centers on pregnant women, including whether these centers provide accurate, non-coercive health care information. Unlike the majority of states, NY does not have informed consent laws which require, among other things, that women receive information regarding life-affirming resources for themselves and their unborn children. Georgia, for example, requires abortionists to have materials available that “list agencies that provide alternatives to abortion,” in addition to information concerning fetal development. Health care providers in NY that include abortion services, offer little to no resources to pregnant women regarding abortion alternatives, including information and referrals to material supports to help poor women bring pregnancies to term. If the Legislature truly wishes to understand the unmet needs of pregnant women in NY, as it should, the study proposed by these bills should also examine the impact of a broader range of providers of pregnancy related women's services, in NY, including those that provide abortion services and referrals, such as Planned Parenthood. FCLNY urges these bills be amended accordingly. 10. Requires SUNY To Offer Medication Abortion, A3322. This bill would require “SUNY to offer abortion by medication techniques at all on-campus student health centers at colleges or universities within the SUNY system and creates a fund to help finance the implementation of offering such services at SUNY on-campus student health centers.” According to the Mayo Clinic, medication abortions pose potential health risks to women, and require certain minimum safety standards, protocols the SUNY bill fails to require. Additionally, The Federal Drug Administration documents Mifepristone hospitalizing women and causing numerous deaths from infection, ruptured ectopic pregnancies, and hemorrhaging.

*Version published in The Buffalo News, Feb. 2, 2022 On the highway heading south through downtown Buffalo, a billboard is displayed which describes New York’s current abortion policy, and calls for a repeal of the Reproductive Health Act (RHA). The billboard elicits much needed attention to the inconsistencies between New York’s abortion laws, current scientific understanding of fetal viability, and the public’s lack of support for later-term abortion (20+ weeks gestation). Viability is the ability of an unborn baby to survive outside of a mother’s womb, with or without medical intervention. In 1970, New York first legalized on-demand abortion pre-viability, which at the time rested within 24 weeks gestation. Decades later, in 2019, despite medical science and public consensus opposing later-term abortions in New York, the RHA was passed, which continued to legalize abortion for any or no reason within 24 weeks of pregnancy. By 2019, however, it was crystal clear that unborn children can be viable before this gestational age. In the past 50 years, neonatal medical treatments have improved significantly and the age of fetal viability has decreased. Developments in science, technology, and treatment practices have enabled premature babies as young as 22 weeks, and even younger , to survive outside of their mothers' wombs. This change was not unforeseen. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor predicted that Roe v. Wade (1973), which legalized pre-viability abortion nationally, would be “on a collision course with itself” as medical advances moved the viability line increasingly closer to fertilization. According to the most recent data from Johnston’s Archive, every year, between 9,100 and 15,400 abortions occur after 20 weeks gestation in the U.S. NY contributes disproportionately to these numbers, with an average of 1,660 reported abortions after 20 weeks each year. As the billboard illustrates, unborn children within 24 weeks can be aborted on-demand in NY, despite their viability. Neither fetal anomalies nor risks to women’s health are necessary to abort these children. Further, fetal anomalies or risks to mothers' lives or physical health are NOT the primary reasons why the majority of later-term abortions occur, including third trimester abortions. Like first trimester abortions, studies show that most second and third trimester abortions are "elective, done on healthy women and healthy fetuses." In a progressive state that claims to recognize the fundamental rights of the most vulnerable, it is a contradiction to arbitrarily ignore science and to allow for the wanton destruction of human beings – viable babies in utero who no longer need the bodies of their mothers to live. When scientific evidence regarding human viability has advanced, so should the law, for the sake of humanity. Nothing less dehumanizes and undermines democracy. The New York State Legislature elevated political ideology above science and human rights by enacting the RHA. Photo Credit: Graham's Foundation

“In childhood all my love went to my mother; my love for my mother was a thing apart. It was rooted in my blood and my bones.” Did you know that writer Pearl S. Buck, the first woman to win both the Pulitzer Prize and the Noble Prize in Literature was against abortion? As the mother of a daughter with severe mental retardation due to Phenylketonuria, she expressed gratitude for the lesson learned from loving a child with disabilities and said, “My child’s life has not been meaningless.” Buck believed that every child deserved to live and be a part of a family. In her forward to The Terrible Choice by Robert Cooke at al, Buck wrote: At what point should we allow this choice? For me the answer is – at no point, once life has begun. At no point, I repeat, either as life begins or as life ends, for we who as human beings cannot, for our own safety, be allowed to choose death, life being all we know”. Having spent the first half of her life in China and being the mother of seven adopted children from Asia, Europe and the United States, Buck began The East and West Association in 1941 to raise awareness of racial intolerance against Asian-Americans. In 1949, she opened the Welcome House, an adoption agency that placed parentless Asian American children with loving families regardless of parental race, a practice not accepted at the time. In 1964, she created the Pearl S. Buck Foundation to address childhood poverty and discrimination and with her estate, provided for Pearl S. Buck International, a child-sponsorship organization still in operation today. Buck’s humanitarian work also included opposition to nuclear weapons and war through the International League of Peace and Freedom and support for the original Equal Rights Amendment.

All Black Lives Matter. In every circumstance. No matter what. SUMMARY OF CONTENTS OVERVIEW - PG. 2 IMPORTANT TERMS - PG. 2 THE U.S. CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM - PG. 3 WEALTH GENERATION - PG. 23 EUGENICS, BIRTH CONTROL, STERILIZATION & ABORTION - PG. 31 THE U.S. HEALTHCARE SYSTEM - PG. 43 THE U.S. EDUCATION SYSTEM - PG. 48 CONCLUSION - PG. 59 WORKS CITED - PG. 61 OVERVIEW Protests. Outrage. Demands for change. This upset comes in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, accumulating from Black Lives Matter protests and initiatives over the past several years since the murder of Trayvon Martin in 2012. Yet, while awareness of police brutality and racism have resurfaced in the public arena due to video footage and media coverage, the dehumanization of black lives is far from a new phenomenon. Systemic racism is embedded into the very fabric of American society; no institution is left unscathed. In fact, our treatment of black lives exemplifies the adage, “the more things change, the more they remain the same.” Our country was built on the labor of African slaves, and the abolition of slavery merely changed the terminology of the systems oppressing of black lives. Systemic racism remains entrenched in our criminal justice system, communities, healthcare system, and schools, producing severe racial disparities across each sector. Some people contend that poverty, not racism, is the driving force of inequality across racial groups. While racism and poverty certainly overlap and are interconnected, poverty alone does not account for the racial discrimination and disproportionately negative outcomes that people of color experience in America. Even when socioeconomic status and other confounding variables are controlled for, racial disparities remain. This paper provides a historical account of systemic racism, contextualizing contemporary racial disparities by diving into America’s dark past and illuminating the systems of oppression that are preventing black Americans from realizing the rights and quality of life they are afforded as human members of our society. By learning our history and developing deeper understandings of systemic racism, we will be better equipped to identify and address racism in our daily lives,serving as anti-racist allies in this nationwide quest for racial justice. Important Terms: Disproportionate indicates that a racial group is overrepresented or underrepresented in a given measurement compared to its percentage of the total population. Disparity is a large difference between two things. In the case of this report, “disparity/disparities” and “disparate outcomes” refer to inequitable outcomes on the basis of race. Implicit Bias refers to how people have racial prejudices that are not conscious or overt, but are still acted upon unintentionally (Brownstein, 2019). Individual Racism involves individuals’ personal presumptions on race that result from conscious and unconscious prejudice. Systemic Racism is used to describe the organized rollout of policies and practices that are embedded in societal structures and institutions, which facilitate the promotion of some racial groups to the exclusion of others (Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre, 2019). White Privilege refers to the inherent advantages, or privileges, that white people possess simply by being white in a society that is racially unequal and unjust (Oxford Dictionary). Note that it does not undermine the life struggles white people can, and do, experience. Regardless of race, people can face many trials and tribulations throughout their lives. However, some struggles people face are specifically due to their race, and regardless of the obstacles white people endure, those due to race will not be among them... that is white privilege. The U.S. Criminal Justice System Summary: People of color have historically, and are currently, disproportionately targeted by the criminal justice system. Throughout history, the criminal justice system has taken on many forms, but all have served as a means of social control for people of color. Each time blacks were afforded rights, backlash from opponents sought new ways to restrict those rights. At its inception, the police were used to capture and return runaway slaves and control the masses of factory workers clamoring for labor rights. Following the abolition of slavery, jails and prisons served as the primary form of social control for black Americans and backlash to racial progress. Jails for the first time became overpopulated with blacks, and convicts were leased to white business owners in need of cheap labor. Blacks performed free, grueling labor in horrendous working conditions that rivaled slavery. Backlash to the passage of the 13th and 14th amendments led to the Jim Crow Era, which ushered in public spectacle lynchings and segregation that terrorized African Americans and stripped them of their newfound rights. Rather than protect and defend the black population, the police often participated, and even facilitated, the lynchings. When lynchings became disfavored in the media, governments turned to legalized lynchings in the form of capital punishment. Overwhelmingly, black defendants were, and still are, overrepresented among those that receive the death penalty, with the race of both the victim and the defendant contributing to whether the death penalty is pursued. White mobs were often successful in demanding government officials perform public executions, which amassed thousands of people, long after such executions were prohibited by law. Despite its lynching roots and blatant racial disparities, capital punishment remains legal in the United States and continues to target people of color, many of whom are still convicted and sentenced with all-white, or nearly all-white juries on the basis of circumstantial evidence. Backlash to the Civil Rights Movement brought a new tactic of socially controlling and disenfranchising blacks. This time, the backlash to racial justice manifested under the guise of the War on Crime and the War on Drugs. Latent with racially discriminatory rhetoric that was once only prevalent in segregationist circles, calls for law and order soon infiltrated and dominated mainstream political rhetoric among Republicans and Democrats alike. The consequences of these politically-driven initiatives led to the entrapment of millions of people in the U.S. criminal justice system, more than any other country in the world. Overwhelmingly and disproportionately, those incarcerated were people of color. The rates of incarceration of people of color were incongruent to their rates of offenses and proportions of the nation’s population. Communities of color were deliberately targeted and people of color faced harsher punishments than white offenders who committed identical offenses. Even upon release, formerly incarcerated individuals face social restrictions and disenfranchisement, preventing them from freely and fully participating in society. The U.S. is still grappling with the ramifications of these policies today. These historical and political contexts lay the framework for the police brutality and desperate outcries from communities of color seen today, with blacks 3 times as likely to be killed by police than whites, and 1.3 times as likely to be unarmed when killed. Police brutality is not a new phenomenon, nor is it the sole contributor to the institutional racism infecting the criminal justice system. To effectively address these racial injustices, a massive overhaul and reformatting of the criminal justice system is needed, in which individuals, police, government officials, and policymakers alike work together toward establishing a society that upholds the value of all its citizens’ lives - not only in theory, but also in practice. _________________________________________________________________ “By affording criminal suspects substantial constitutional rights in theory, the Supreme Court validates the results of the criminal justice system as fair. That formal fairness obscures the systemic concerns that ought to be raised by the fact that the prison population is overwhelmingly poor and disproportionately black” (Cole, 1999). Slavery has had a lasting, damaging impact on the African-American experience in the U.S. Modern law enforcement in the south originated from Slave Patrols, which primarily functioned to capture and return runaway slaves and instill terror to deter slave rebellions (Potter, n.d.). After slavery was abolished, new systems meant to control and exploit black bodies were immediately ushered in. Following the Civil War, the south was decimated, with fields being destroyed from fires, floods, and neglect during the war. Whites, who had established homes, businesses, and customs prior to the Civil War, were teetering on the brink of poverty. Newly freed blacks, who had no assets or foundation as citizens, were freed into very perilous economic conditions. In desperation, many newly freed blacks began stealing food from whites to get by. Historically, southern whites had already associated blacks with criminal behavior. Slaves routinely stole from their masters, deeming it recompensation for their exploitation or merely a “recycling” of the master’s property. Racist views of blacks’ biological inferiority caused many to accept such actions as “natural to the Negro” (Oshinsky, 1996). The difference now was that rather than an offense being perceived as committed against the slave owner, who would then privately punish the slave and move on, such crimes were now seen as offenses against the state. As such, it increasingly became law enforcement’s job to regulate the behaviors of former slaves (Oshinsky, 1996). Additionally, numerous laws were passed that specifically targeted black, leading to tens of thousands of African Americans being “arbitrarily arrested” and “hit with outrageous fines,” leading to further arrests when they were unable to pay such extreme fines (Blackmon, 2012). Convictions against blacks rose, and the demographic composition of Southern jails and prisons changed rapidly. It what seemed to be overnight, “the jailhouse had become ‘a negro preserve’” (Oshinsky, 1996). Thus marked the beginning of racially targeted arrests and the disproportionate incarceration of people of color that persist today (Blain, 2020). The southern prison infrastructure was not designed to accommodate this influx of people. One state official observed “Emancipation will require a system of prisons,” citing that prisons were nearly at capacity prior to the end of slavery and blacks’ involvement in the criminal justice system (Oshinsky, 1996). The solution for these overwhelmed jails and prisons was convict leasing. Edmund Richardson, a southern businessman who had lost much of his fortune during the Civil War, struck a deal with Mississippi's federal officials. He convinced them to ease the burden of the jails and prisons by leasing some of the convicts, who were overwhelmingly former slaves, to him, as he needed cheap labor to work his land. Richardson assured authorities he would feed, clothe, protect, and treat them well. Not only did officials agree, they even paid him $18,000 annually for the maintenance and transportation of the inmates. In addition to this stipend, Richardson pocketed all of the profits earned off the grueling, free labor of the convicts. Richardson’s bargain marked the beginning of an era of convict leasing, during which “a generation of prisoners would suffer and die under conditions far worse than anything they had ever experienced as slaves” (Oshinsky, 1996). As convict leasing expanded after reconstruction officials left the south, southern government officials began leasing out falsely incarcerated blacks to local businessmen, farmers, and numerous corporations, including U.S. Steel, who were looking for a cheap and plentiful labor supply. Freed from slavery, black Americans found themselves entangled in a neoslavery system, where they were repeatedly bought, sold, and tortured with beatings and grueling physical labor, doing “the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery” (Blackmon, 2012). Individuals who were convict leased were racially segregated, with black convicts doing the “nigger work,” dangerous, labor-intensive work in coal mines, sawmills, cotton fields, swamplands, and railroad camps. Reports of the farming conditions blatantly lied and casually mentioned the deaths of dozens from gunshot wounds and disease. Meanwhile, southern government treasuries generated millions of dollars, once again orienting the southern economy around free black labor (Blackmon, 2012). Ultimately, convict leasing “was a system that pitted rich people against poor people, whites against blacks, and ex-masters against former slaves. Its profits would be widely resented and narrowly shared” (Oshinsky, 1996). As the prisons and convict leasing systems filled with black bodies who had typically committed minor, often arbitrary crimes, white Democrats rallied around white supremacism, fear, and outright violence to suffocate the newfound rights of blacks and regain political control. They “launched an ‘indiscriminate assault on blacks,’” killing dozens “in broad daylight, without the slightest hesitation of disguise,” since “white opinion strongly supported these crimes” (Oshinsky, 1996). In the north, the genesis of the modern police force emerged in the 1830s in response to disorder as a means of social control, particularly those with economic power. “Disorder” is not to be confused with “crime.” There is little evidence to suggest crime was spiking during this time. Rather, it was economic interests that drove the creation of a contemporary, public police force. Urbanization and inequality were on the rise, with factory workers heavily exploited and exposed to inhumane working conditions and compensation. Unrest within the working populace catalyzed the creation of “an organized, centralized body of men...legally authorized to use force and maintain order, it also provided the illusion that this order was being maintained under the rule of law, not at the whim of those with economic power” (Potter, n.d.). These departments were “notoriously corrupt and flagrantly brutal,” pawns of local politicians and routinely participated in ballot-box-stuffing, vote-buying, and strike-breaking. Some historians have gone so far as to refer to these early police departments as “delegated vigilantes” that used “overwhelming force against dangerous classes’ as a means of deterring criminality” (Potter, n.d.). Even after the 14th amendment was passed and afforded blacks equal protection and citizenship privileges, Jim Crow laws swept the nation, restricting these rights. They were passed on the untrue premise of facilities being “separate but equal.” Noncompliance to Jim Crow laws was responded to with police brutality and vicious violence by white vigilante groups that police turned a blind eye to. More disturbing is that racial terror lynching, often facilitated by police, was used as a vehicle to enforce and ensure racial segregation and Jim Crow laws. In May 1866, white Memphis police officers began firing into a crowd of black men, women, and children. The events culminated in white mobs ransacking black neighborhoods, seeking to kill and drive out all black people from the city. After three days of violence, 46 blacks were killed, 91 houses, four churches, and twelve schools were burned down. Additionally, at least five women were raped and many blacks permanently fled (Equal Justice Initiative, 2017). Then, less than three months later in New Orleans, black men attempted to attend a state constitutional convention to discuss furthering voting rights and the eliminating Black Codes. There was a confrontation between black supporters and white opponents in the streets, and the white mob started indiscriminately shooting blacks, convention supporters and bystanders alike. White police officers did not defend the black victims, but instead participated in the attacks, using various weapons to arrest and kill several blacks. Ultimately, there were 48 black casualties and 200 wounded. Lynchings, often organized, claimed the lives of thousands of African-Americans. Often, they were public spectacles, in which thousands of white spectators came to watch victims be tortured, dismembered, whipped, and burned before ultimately being killed (Equal Justice Initiative, 2017). A 1919 newspaper announcing a planned, public spectacle lynching (National Archives via the Equal Justice Initiative, 2017). Spectators smile and pose for the camera after witnessing a lynching (James Allen et al., via the Equal Justice Initiative, 2017). READ FULL REPORT BELOW: