The consistent life ethic, also known as the consistent ethic of life or whole life ethic, is an ideology that opposes abortion, capital punishment, assisted suicide, and euthanasia. Adherents oppose war, or at the very least unjust war; some adherents go as far as full pacifism and so oppose all war. Many authors have understood the ethic to be relevant to a broad variety of areas of public policy as well as social justice issues. The term was popularized in 1983 by the Catholic prelate Joseph Bernardin to express an ideology based on the premise that all human life is sacred and should be protected by law. History The phrase "consistent ethic of life" was used as far back as a 1971 speech delivered by then-Archbishop Humberto Medeiros of Boston. Eileen Egan In 1971, the Catholic pacifist Eileen Egan coined the phrase "seamless garment" to describe a holistic reverence for life. The phrase is a Bible reference from John 19:23 to the seamless robe of Jesus, which his executioners left whole rather than dividing it at his execution. The seamless garment philosophy holds that issues such as abortion, capital punishment, militarism, euthanasia, social injustice, and economic injustice all demand a consistent application of moral principles valuing the sanctity of human life. "The protection of life", said Egan, "is a seamless garment. You can't protect some life and not others." Her words were meant to challenge members of society who divided their commitment to protecting and cherishing human life, choosing anti-war stances but not anti-abortion work, or those members of the anti-abortion movement who were in favor of capital punishment. J. Bryan Hehir J. Bryan Hehir, staff writer for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on political affairs, is credited by Charles Curran with coining the term "consistent ethic of life" Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago helped publicize the consistent life ethic idea, initially in a lecture at Fordham University, December 6, 1983. At first Bernardin spoke out against nuclear war and abortion. However, he quickly expanded the scope of his view to include all aspects of human life. In that Fordham University lecture, Bernardin said: "The spectrum of life cuts across the issues of genetics, abortion, capital punishment, modern warfare and the care of the terminally ill." Bernardin said that although each of the issues was distinct, nevertheless the issues were linked since the valuing and