Recap: Rehumanize Conference
Last weekend, our friends at Rehumanize International held their annual conference in Atlanta. Rehumanize is a Consistent Life Ethic (CLE) group, which means their work encompasses a wide range of social ills. That includes abortion, along with threats to older humans like the death penalty and sex trafficking. Their conferences present a wonderful opportunity for activists in different spheres to come together and learn from one another. Secular Pro-Life has proudly sponsored every conference since its inception.
This year’s conference was terrific as always. Video recordings of all the presentations will appear on the Rehumanize website, but for now, here are a few highlights.
Friday night opened with a keynote from Beth Fox, who discussed various forms of medicalized violence against people with disabilities (including prenatally). Fox, who requires a wheelchair and a ventilator, has had more than her fair share of run-ins with the medical system. She strives for a world where all doctors embrace their talents as healers, forever discarding the myth that it is better to be dead than disabled. And remember, kids: “If your diversity doesn’t include disability, you’re doing it wrong!”
I had the pleasure of joining Connie Becker (of PAAU) and Marcia Lane-McGee for a panel entitled “Choosing Life for Our Children: What Is Needed for an Authentically Pro-Life Culture.” Becker shared her experiences as a young mom, including false assumptions people made about her situation — for instance, “teen mom” is not synonymous with “single mom” — and things the pro-life community did well to support her and her son. Marcia’s experience was less positive; she placed an infant in an open adoption many years ago, which could have been avoided if she had received adequate housing and space to think. She talked about the need for greater emphasis on family preservation, as opposed to trite “adoption is a loving option” rhetoric. I rounded out the group with my perspective as a foster and adoptive mom of older children, and we wound up in a delightful, free-flowing conversation about motherhood in all its forms and colors.
I also really enjoyed Saturday morning’s panel “Don’t Vote for Violence: Approaching Electoral Politics with a Whole-Life Ethic.” The panelists, hailing from Republican (Melba Aguilar), Democratic (Hayden Laye),1 American Solidarity Party (Bill Fleming), and independent (Michael Jezewak) politics, encouraged us all to consider becoming candidates for office or otherwise getting involved in the political nitty-gritty. There was ample discussion of how idealism butts heads with practicality, which can be a big turn-off for many pro-lifers, myself included. But as Aguilar pointed out, we can’t get much done if we aren’t in the room. Hayden Laye took the opportunity to announce that he will be running for city council in his native Walhalla, SC. I also found out that he recently left his church and became a secular pro-lifer. Welcome aboard, Hayden!
Caroline Antoun had a difficult story to share with us. She and her then-husband had a hard time conceiving and turned to in vitro fertilization. “You don’t go into IVF thinking you’re going to divorce your partner,” she said. But after the birth of two children, her husband became abusive. Their divorce led to a prolonged legal proceeding, centered on the question of what would happen to their embryos still stored in freezers. Rather than taking a “best interests of the child” approach to determine custody, the court took a contract law approach that treated the embryos as mere property. This makes little sense; Caroline quipped “You go into a fertility clinic to build your family, not an asset portfolio!” Unfortunately, judges just aren’t well prepared to handle these bioethical issues. Rehumanize founder Aimee Murphy shared the stage with Caroline, educating us about the lack of regulations in the fertility industry, and how she and her husband Kyle became parents through embryo adoption. (Their first transfer is just weeks away!)
Building on Beth Fox’s disability rights presentation the night before, Kathleen O’Neal gave a keynote on “Understanding MAID From an Anti-Ableist, Anti-Ageist Lens: The Fight for Life at the Intersection of Youth, Elder, and Disability Rights and Liberation.” I had the pleasure of spending some one-on-one time with Kathleen later, and found out that she is a Secular Pro-Life supporter. Hi, Kathleen!
There were several other speeches and workshops, on subjects ranging from artificial intelligence to the war in Gaza to resisting political polarization, all of which I encourage you to check out when the videos become available. But I am going to skip ahead to Saturday night’s Create | Encounter Release Party, celebrating this year’s art contest winners — especially Sara Leonard. Sara, whom I had not previously met, showed off an astonishing work of art in a very unique medium: Minecraft Java! She created a playable Minecraft world full of three-dimensional embryonic models. It took her six months. I cannot hype up enough how cool this is. The playable file will be uploaded soon, and you should definitely share it with the Minecraft fans in your life.
I returned to the stage for a live performance of my song Alive Without Permission. I was very nervous and I could hear myself hit a sour note or two, but the audience was very kind. A toddler even started dancing, which is all the validation I need.
By the end of it all, I was thoroughly exhausted! But my heart is full, because I got to reconnect with long-time friends and make many more contacts, all of whom are strongly committed to protecting human lives. I am already looking forward to next year.
- The originally scheduled Democratic panelist, Connecticut State Rep. Trenée McGee, had to back out due to illness. ↩︎
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