Can Catholics vote for pro-abortion candidates?

by Michael Shackleton · October 2, 2011

Does the Church approve of the proposition that Catholics may, in certain circumstances, vote for pro-abortion politicians, provided they do so not to facilitate abortion but only to obtain other social benefits? If this has in fact been approved and is part of Catholic teaching, it appears to ignore the fact that abortion is murder and pro-abortion politicians are pro-murder advocates, and would have justified voting for Adolf Hitler, despite his policy on Jewish genocide.
Damien McLeish

In 2004 the then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) told the United States bishops in a letter that Catholics who deliberately voted for a pro-abortion politician in order to support abortion were guilty of formal cooperation in evil and thus unworthy to present themselves for holy communion.

However, he said, Catholics who did not support a candidate who stood for abortion, and did not consent to abortion but voted for the candidate for other reasons, could do so �in the presence of proportionate reasons�. Such voting, he explained, is considered �remote material cooperation�. This means essentially that unconsenting voters are far removed from performing or actively aiding and abetting the act of abortion.

Now, of course, the serious question immediately comes up: what could be a �proportionate reason� for voting for a pro-abortion candidate while simultaneously not consenting to abortion? In spite of condemning abortion as evil, many Catholics conscientiously vote pro-abortion politicians into power not as pro-abortionists but as reformists who want, for example, to provide free education and hospital care. Could these desirable outcomes have a moral value that compensates for the promotion of the undesirable moral value of abortion, which Vatican II condemned as an �unspeakable crime� (Gaudium et Spes, 51)?

The gravity of the sin of abortion would appear to require really grave moral reasons to justify a conscientious decision to support pro-abortion politicians by voting them into power. Some voters may in conscience claim to have found reasons, such as a candidate�s track record of honesty and efficiency in getting things done for the local community. However, it would be a serious challenge for a well-informed Catholic to do so when immoral practices such as abortion or even genocide are at stake.

For all that, it is because the voter in such cases as these does not consent to abortion that the Church does not prescribe how to vote, but highlights the need to be aware of the moral consequences of one�s vote.