This work explains an increasingly popular view dubbed the Consistent Life Ethic, which holds that all life deserves reverence, so all social support for actions that destroy life should be withdrawn. The call is for opposition to abortion, capital punishment, euthanasia and other forms of killing to be consistent. Supporters of this view, shared widely in these pages, include figures from the Dalai Lama and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malread Corrifon Maguire to actor Martin Sheen and Village Voice columnist Nat Hentoff. It is at once an ethical, religious and political ideology, explored here in its application to actions from treatment of unborn humans to infants, the disabled, the poverty-stricken, war combatants and animals.

In the work at hand, contributors explain the history of the pro-life movement, its growth and expansion, how these types of seemingly disparate killing are all linked, why a Consistent Life Ethic is needed, and how individuals can take steps to assure this ethic is more widely accepted.