When questioned about a candidate’s stance on abortion, a dear friend recently said to me, “I’m not voting on that issue.”
The comment reminded me of my friend Matt’s recent post:
One Issue Voting « From the Straight and Narrow
“I’m not voting on that issue.”
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Copyright 1993-2008 Amy Maxwell
I respect that view, and as a Catholic, I struggle with this question. But I don’t think it should be this easy.
By permitting one issue to “disqualify” a candidate, we make a choice. For example, we might have to choose to vote our conscience on abortion (even though we are unlikely ever to eradicate it completely and even though we might, one day, reach solutions that we are all happy with), but at the same time consign thousands of Americans to live in poverty or thousands to fight in an unjust war. We might, ironically, deprive poor women of free or inexpensive birth control or prenatal care. We might deny poor infants adequate healthcare. I would respect anyone’s honest, principled balancing of these concerns, but I cannot agree that it is all right to reject one set of them out of hand.
Comment by Donna — 8/25/2008 @ 4:13 pm