Theology of the Body: Great Article for Single-Issue Voters...

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Great Article for Single-Issue Voters...

I must admit that I don't particularly care about the upcoming elections in 2008. As much as I hate being categorized, I fall squarely into the "Christian right, one issue voter, with no one to vote for" category. Rudy Giuliani - ugh. John McCain - ugh again. Don't even get me started on the Dems. What they want is for me to lighten my stance on abortion. Even if I did, even a little, I would still seem extreme to these people. For crying out loud, my family boycotts companies that support abortion. We go without Kraft Mac n' Cheese, trips to World Market, and I've even started using old double-edge safety razors since finding out that Gillette Mach3s are verboten.

Lately, I have taken this stance on the politics of abortion, following the likes of Father Frank Pavone - NO COMPROMISES! EVERY LIFE PROTECTED, EVERY LIFE SACRED - DO YOU HEAR ME? NO COMPROMISES!

And I have, wrongly, felt rather brazen and thickheaded in my opposition to these people. Until today, reading the following from the National Catholic Register:

"Rudy’s deal: He’ll promise not to push the pro-abortion agenda, and he’ll nominate judges in the mold of Samuel Alito and John Roberts. Pro-lifers in the Republican Party in return would support him, but keep insisting that the party stay pro-life, and fight our fiercest pro-life battles at the state level, where they belong.
That seems like a good deal, at first blush. We’re well aware that “forced conversions” to the pro-life fold are far from the ideal. Think of the candidacy of Bob Dole in 1996. And it is true that the fight against judicial tyranny is an immense front in the battle for the right to life. Transforming the courts is a prerequisite to victory elsewhere.

But what dooms the deal from the start is the fact that it totally misunderstands what pro-lifers care about in the first place.

When they ask us to “be reasonable” and go along with a pro-abortion leader, they assume that there is something unreasonable about the pro-life position to start with.
We’re sorry, but we don’t see what is so unreasonable about the right to life. We’ve seen ultrasounds, we’ve named our babies in the womb, we’ve seen women destroyed by abortion. What looks supremely unreasonable to us is that we should trust a leader who not doesn’t only reject the right to life but even supports partial-birth abortion, which is more infanticide than abortion."

I feel better now.

If you get a chance, read the whole thing, compliments of the editors of the National Catholic Register.