Votes of conscience

by Editor · September 10, 2008

Over the next couple of months, the US presidential election campaign will kick into high gear � and with it debates about how the candidates� policies shape up to Church teachings. South Africans, too, will enter a similar discourse as the country prepares for its parliamentary elections next year.
For many Catholics, life ethics will dominate that debate. It is a matter of public record that the Democratic Party�s candidate, Barack Obama, supports legislation which guarantees women access to abortion, and that Republican candidate John McCain has a record of voting against laws which would further liberalise or extend abortion legislation. On this issue, Mr McCain and the Catholic Church are in accord.

For many Catholics, a candidate�s position on abortion, public or private, is decisive in how they will vote. Others will consider this issue as well, but also measure other policy matters against Church teachings.

But even when a candidate favours legal access to abortion and his opponent does not, the issues aren�t always as clear-cut as they may seem. A fundamental question, which may or may not apply in the Obama vs McCain contest, is this: is it preferable that a candidate will not proscribe legal abortions but pledge to create the social conditions whereby fewer unborn lives would be aborted; or that a candidate embraces pro-life views he won�t be able to legislate while failing to create the conditions whereby the perceived need for abortions would be reduced?

There are no easy answers. One position is contrary to Church teaching but might save unborn lives; the other conforms to a principle of moral imperative but might not save unborn lives.

Catholics will have to confront another crucial question: Can abortion serve as the sole litmus test for the programme of a political party or candidate, or should the Catholic voter weigh other proposed policies against the teachings of the Church?

For example, when Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, warns that poverty is one of the most dramatic crises the world is facing now, is he placing the Church�s preferential option for the poor above, below or alongside life issues? What about a candidate�s position on war, globalisation, the environment?

Catholic voters in their considerations must ask themselves where the greater good resides, whether they embrace or reject the notion that there is a hierarchy of rights and suffering, with the protection of unborn life at the top.

The Church may not and will not tell Catholics whom to vote for. What the Church must do is to present all its teachings that a relevant to an election � not just on life ethics, but also on themes such as social justice and peace � to equip the Catholic electorate to cast their votes with an informed conscience.