Voting for pro-abortion parties?

by Michael Shackleton · July 8, 2014

How does one vote, with mental reservations, for a party that provides abortion on demand? I cannot follow Pope Benedict’s strictly rational reasoning and fear I make a little speech to myself in the wrong way. TAH de Ruyter

To perform an abortion is always a matter of grave sin. Whoever intends to do so is therefore guilty of grave sin.

A politician who supports this practice and his or his party’s pro-abortion policy is equally guilty. They may not be actively assisting in abortion, but in standing for it publicly they are guilty of formal cooperation in evil.

Formal cooperation means full consent of the will in condoning the practice.

A voter goes into the polling booth, and scans the list of candidates or parties he could vote for. He is dead against abortion but drawn to a party that has an impressive record of community upliftment, yet simultaneously permits abortion on demand.

If he votes for the pro-abortionist, is he also guilty of formal cooperation in evil?

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith before he became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote a memorandum in 2004, which you refer to.

He did not use the term mental reservations but essentially put it this way: If the voter does not share the candidate’s stand in favour of abortion but votes for him for proportionate reasons, he may do so.

An example of a proportionate reason can be found in the field of medicine. Chemotherapy is a medication that is administered with the intention of treating a cancer patient on the road to recovery. The inevitable and unpleasant hair loss and nausea that accompany this treatment are not intended. The intention is directed exclusively to the good effect of treating cancer, and this is the proportionate reason for permitting the nasty side-effects.

A proportionate or sufficient reason to vote for a pro-abortion party could be that party’s positive commitment to service delivery or some other desirable community benefit which, in the voter’s judgment, is necessary for the common good.

Cardinal Ratzinger was applying the moral principle of double effect that, in general and under certain conditions, says it is morally justified to do something for a good purpose whose positive value outweighs a negative effect. You intend to vote for the good the party says it will do, and do not intend the negative result of abortion.

The cardinal’s view was that if you believe voting in this way is worth it for a good cause, you are not formally cooperating in evil and may cast the ballot in good conscience.