withallyourmind.net

I am a registered Republican voter and have voted almost exclusively for Republican candidates in every major election for the last 32 years. ( The last time I probably did not was when I first was old enough to exercise my right to vote and cast my vote for Jimmy Carter in the ‘76 presidential election. My reasons for voting then was not quite so thoughtful or rational - He was from my home state of Georgia.) I have voted Republican, not out of some blind allegiance to a particular political party, but because the Republican candidates’ views on issues which are important to me most closely aligned with my views. If a Democrat’s views more closely aligned with mine I would have no touble voting Democrat. There are a number of issues which are important to me, and should be important to any evangelical voter. Among these, and perhaps the most important issue, is the candidate’s view of the sanctity of human life. I would find it difficult to justify voting for a candidate who supported abortion (not necessarily impossible, but difficult). I think, in the hierarchy of important issues, this one is near the top.

Charles J. Chaput, at First Things, had addressed this issue from a Catholic perspective in his post, Thoughts on “Roman Catholics for Obama ‘08.” Chaput, too, voted for Carter in 1976 (although Carter was “soft toward permissive abortion). Chaput, although he was able to rationalize his support for a pro-choice candidate at that time, now doubts that such support was, nor perhaps could be, justified. Optimistic that perhaps a second term with Carter would perhaps bring about a change on the issue of abortion, he campaigned for Carter in his bid for re-election. Reagan, a pro-life candidate, defeated Carter in his bid for a second term. Despite Reagan’s pro-life stance, Chaput is concerned that not more progress has been made in the important cause of protecting innocent human life:

In the years after the Carter loss, I began to notice that very few of the people, including Catholics, who claimed to be “personally opposed” to abortion really did anything about it. Nor did they intend to. For most, their personal opposition was little more than pious hand-wringing and a convenient excuse—exactly as it is today. In fact, I can’t name any pro-choice Catholic politician who has been active, in a sustained public way, in trying to discourage abortion and to protect unborn human life—not one. Some talk about it, and some may mean well, but there’s very little action. In the United States in 2008, abortion is an acceptable form of homicide.

He brings this all up in the context of the present election and the efforts of a group known as “Roman Catholics for Obama ‘08.” This group had quoted the following words from an article by Chaput in their campaigning efforts for Obama:

So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate? The answer is: I can’t, and I won’t. But I do know some serious Catholics— people whom I admire—who may. I think their reasoning is mistaken, but at least they sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And most important: They don’t keep quiet about it; they don’t give up; they keep lobbying their party and their representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can vote for pro-choice candidates if they vote for them despite—not because of—their pro-choice views.

Unfortunately, the article stopped the quote too soon. The very next sentences in the article read:

But [Catholics who support pro-choice candidates] also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it. What is a “proportionate” reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life—which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.

I think these are good words of advice for any evangelical considering supporting a candidate who is pro-choice. Chaput noted that:

Planned Parenthood of the Chicago area, as recently as February 2008, noted that Senator Barack Obama “has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record both in the U.S. Senate and the Illinois Senate.”