pro-life

 

"Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account fo the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence" (1 Pet. 3:15). Email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser.

What About the 'Root Causes' of Abortion? Faith, Abortion, and Voting: Part 5 In this series leading up to Election Day, we will explain the view that abortion is the most serious and urgent social issue of our time and what this means for Catholic voters. Are we simply free to vote for whatever candidate we prefer, for any reason that’s in our conscience? Or does our right to vote come with objective moral responsibilities that we must consider before casting our ballot? In the previous part of this series, we looked at the very narrow conditions in which it might be possible for a Catholic to vote for a pro-abortion candidate—as well as all the many conditions in which it is not. In this final installment, we examine the oft-heard claim that proponents of legal abortion can actually be more “pro-life” than opponents, as long as they support policies designed to make abortion “rare.” If you want to get rid of abortion, should you vote for a candidate committed to keeping it legal? It would seem like the obvious answer is “No.” But some people argue that, even if abortion is the preeminent social issue of our time, Catholics could have a proportionate reason to vote for a pro-choice (or what we would more properly call a pro-abortion) candidate if they think his policies will reduce abortion by making it unnecessary instead of illegal. The argument goes like this: pro-lifers have spent nearly fifty years trying to outlaw abortion and have failed. Maybe it would be better, they say, to support politicians and policies that try make abortion not illegal but less desirable—by reducing its “root causes.” For example, they say, generous social welfare policies will incentivize poor mothers not to abort their unborn children and do more to save babies than any anti-abortion law...