My $0.02 . . .

I rarely ever talk about politics, but I feel compelled, much like I did to write this blog post. A friend of mine posted a "question" on her blog about whether or not a Catholic could vote for Obama. I say "question" because the rest of the post seemed to be reasons to say you aren't Catholic if you do. You can read the post here. Basically she cites issues related to the sanctity of life and gay marriage. You can see my stance on gay marriage in the first link, and as far as sanctity of life read on.

I do not deny that the sanctity of life is very important. As I posted on Facebook status that really prompted me, being pro-life is fundamental to who I am, and I mean all stages of life. Before I got into theology, before my senior year in high school, a horrendous hate crime was committed in east Texas, 3 white supremacists drug James Byrd behind their pick-up truck to his death. I recall talking with my mom about this as we were going into Kroger as the trial was starting. I remember telling her something to effect of: I know what those guys did was awful, and they really deserve some major punishment, but I don't think we should kill them for it. Even then I saw the death penalty as a violation of the sanctity of life. Consequently, one of those murderers, Lawrence Russell Brewer, is now the cause of those on death row no longer getting a special last meal because he ordered enough food for at least four people and ate none of it. The waste of food really made me mad, but that is another issue for another time.

The sanctity of life is not a negotiable issue for me. I believe that life should be protected and cherished from conception to natural death, in all cases. That being said, I hate that our major political parties have aligned themselves so firmly on either side of the debate. I see it as a manipulative strategy on the part of the parties to get people to align themselves with one party or another based on that issue where otherwise, they may not. And I do understand that there are pro-chose republicans and pro-life democrats, but they are very small minorities in the parties. Especially as Catholics we are told over and over we should not vote for Pro-choice candidates, unless of course there is a very legitimate well-founded reason for doing so. So, you end up with Catholics feeling locked in to vote republican to be true to their faith. 

Realistically though, whether a candidate is pro-life or pro-choice, doesn't seem to matter to them after 7 PM on election day. Pro-life politicians at high levels of government don't seem to be doing anything to overturn Roe v. Wade. For example, Bush 43 ran on a pro-life platform and did nothing to help make abortion illegal. Along those same lines, abortion being illegal doesn't really solve the life issue either. The real issue is that we need to change people’s hearts with regard to these issues, a law will not be effective without a change of heart. Before abortion was legal, people were having abortions, usually much to the detriment on the mother’s health, and even in the 1st and 2nd centuries, infanticide was regular in the Roman Empire. This isn't a new issue and laws have certainly not done anything to change the hearts of people in regards to it.

I say how you vote depends where your conscience leads you (falling back on my Thomistic roots) presuming you have formed your conscience well. There could be well-found reasons for voting for a pro-choice candidate.