By Marlo Safi and Frank Messina
Rehumanize International— the Pittsburgh-based, consistent pro-life ethics group —can’t seem to catch a break.
After the Women’s March on Washington organizers rejected the group’s request to sponsor the event in January due to their pro-life stance, Rehumanize International (RI) was faced with another rejection on Wednesday due to their stance on abortion being incompatible with the values of the 10 organizers of the Pittsburgh March Against the War scheduled for July 1st.
Two days after the organizers, who call themselves the Peace Roundtable, decided to rescind RI’s sponsorship of the March Against the War, the Women’s March to Ban the Bomb also rejected RI’s request for sponsorship.
“Given that our committee’s fundamental agreement that [abortion] is an essential part of a woman’s rights agenda, we are unable to accept RI’s sponsorship on June 17th,” Allison Pytlak of Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom (WILPF) said to RI.
The group was refunded the $500 donation they made as a sponsor.
“This seems to be a theme,” CJ Williams, the RI Director of Outreach & Education said in the press release. “These other organizations working passionately to end violence against vulnerable human beings divide their power, reject support, and exclude us because we apply the principles of nonviolence consistently.”
RI’s Executive Director Aimee Murphy told The Pitt Maverick that while they’ve faced rejection as possible sponsors, they will still continue to attend anti-war marches as long as they’re able to.
“Our voice as a Consistent Life Ethic organization is especially needed and valuable in this day and age, when polarization is the norm, and violence is permitted to remain entrenched in our culture,” Murphy said.
Rosemary Geraghty, RI’s social media director, told The Pitt Maverick that the exclusion of pro-life feminists, such as the ones in RI, from sponsoring women’s marches is “offensive” to the millions of pro-life women across the country.
“It’s really disheartening that feminists have excluded us despite our overlapping beliefs regarding things like nuclear disarmament and war,” Geraghty said. “It’s concerning for the future of the feminist movement and the future of the anti-war movement.”
Murphy said that while RI may be an “uncomfortable ally” to have, they represent the many young people who eschew the partisan divide in favor of more “human centered, consistent, authentic politics.”
“I honestly believe that our witness is the future of the human rights movement, Murphy said. “And hopefully, by our witness, and through dialogue, those who sought to remove us will come to understand how logical, common sense and compassionate our position truly is.”
Comments
comments
