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The Consistent Life Ethic is an ideal that asserts that "all human life is sacred", and that this calls for "a coherent social policy which seeks to protect the rights of the weakest and most vulnerable in our society, the unborn, the infirm, the refugee, the homeless, and the poor." Though drawing on much religious and secular thought of the past, particularly on non-violence, the contemporary idea took shape in the 1980s, an early exponent being Joseph Cardinal Bernardin.
Those who subscribe to the ethic are often equally at odds with the Right over capital punishment, war, and poverty issues, as well as the Left over abortion and euthanasia.
In the United States, the ethic is promoted by an umbrella organization called Consistent Life (formerly the Seamless Garment Network) which includes about 400 anti-war, pro-life, Christian, Buddhist, and other organizations.
Other notable exponents include Nat Hentoff, the Dalai Lama, and Wendell Berry.
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