ARTICLES
October 2002 ARTICLES
Contents © 2002
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
Why Play Games With This?
How Catholics Should Vote
By Christopher Zehnder
With elections upon us, many Catholics wonder how they should consider their vote. Is the vote merely a strategic weapon used to knock out a more obnoxious candidate in favor of a less obnoxious one? Or is it a validation of, and support for, a candidate and all he stands for? Abortion certainly is a sine qua non issue that should make or break a Catholic's support for a candidate, but must a Catholic be a purist even on this issue? Should he vote for a candidate who allows for exceptions for abortion or insist on "no exceptions"? And what of other issues defined by the Church's social teaching? How important are a candidate's stances on whether economic markets should be regulated by juridical and cultural norms, on capital punishment, on immigration, on family issues, etc.?
Jerry Urrutia of the Los Angeles-based pro-life group, Shield of Roses, said she thinks one should consider other issues when judging a candidate, but, she said, "abortion is the foundation." "I think that with these other issues -- immigration, the death penalty -- we can work with the candidate from the standpoint of life and go on from there," said Urrutia. "We have to take those things into account. But gosh, we're trying to get the best people we possibly can. And if, at the start, they are pro-life and anti-abortion, at least that gives us a foot in. If a candidate is pro-life, then I could talk to him about the death penalty."
Urrutia thinks the standard of pro-life should extend even to candidates for offices that will, conceivably, have nothing to do with abortion legislation. "The pro-life position is so important," she said, "that I want to know their view on it. Once you get into a political arena, you tend to have ambitions and want to go farther. So even if it's the proverbial dog-catcher, why not get somebody in there that already has that pro-life stance? At least they're working with you. If it's for city council -- the city council could vote on who is standing on the sidewalks."
A long-time Antelope Valley Catholic pro-life activist, Vincent Polis, said he thinks that for a Catholic, the whole issue of whom to vote for is a difficult one because "a Catholic takes an overall philosophical perspective" in judging candidates and issues. But, said Polis, "abortion really does turn into a litmus because the issue there becomes one of the intrinsic value of a human being; and for someone to assimilate into their psychology that human beings have intrinsic value, really speaks to a non-reductionist position -- even if it's not well thought out, if it's in their guts, if they understand that human beings aren't trees and dogs and rocks, but that we're something absolutely unique and deserve unique protection. Abortion is in your face -- we will kill human beings or we will not kill them -- that's sort of why in my mind, and in the minds of so many pro-lifers, the abortion issue becomes the issue of the day."
But what if a candidate is pro-life but also a strong supporter of the death penalty? "If we're talking in a vacuum, and those are the only issues," said Polis, "then certainly the greater of those two issues is the preservation of an innocent human being as opposed to the killing of someone who has been convicted in a just system of horrendous crimes." Thus, if he had a choice between a candidate who was pro-life, but pro-death penalty, and one who was pro-abortion and against the death penalty, Polis said he would vote for the candidate who is opposed to abortion. "It is a far greater sin to kill an innocent human being than to kill someone who is guilty," said Polis.
But what of the option of voting for neither candidate? For Polis, that is no option. "I think it is our duty to remain involved. We must remain involved," he said. Yet, Polis admitted the decision in such cases is not always easy. "It's very comfortable in California for candidates who run in a conservative area to say they are pro-life, because there is absolutely zero they can do with a liberal majority and a liberal Democratic governor," he said. "They can say they're pro-life, and then in very many other ways act opposed to us. Then you are in a very difficult position of deciding what is the pragmatic outcome of your vote. Are we better off by actually voting for somebody who is sincerely convinced of an abortionist position, but in every other way votes with social justice and in appropriate matters? I've never done that. I'd have a hard time stomaching it. I've made the decision. I never will do it, but I can certainly understand that. It's tough, in this day and age, when they have us so well targeted."
Jim Hanink, professor of philosophy at Loyola-Marymount in Los Angeles and associate editor of the New Oxford Review, thinks that in voting for a candidate one is "contributing to his moral authority." Still, though Hanink is opposed to the death penalty, he voted for George W. Bush, a death penalty advocate, "because of his stand on abortion and on his general openness to religious considerations." The big difference between abortion and capital punishment, said Hanink, is that abortion is "intrinsically wrong," capital punishment is not. The same goes, he said, for a moratorium on immigration. "I don't think that's intrinsically wrong, either. I think that's a poor policy, but it's within the realm of reasonable debate given a Christian view of life, or given, even, a commitment to human rights. I think governments do have some say in having borders. I think a moratorium would be a bad idea -- I would go more in the opposite direction -- for a time, greatly loosen restrictions -- but I don't take that to be the same kind of issue as abortion."
Hanink, though, said, "I could imagine a case where very few people were inclined to have abortions and the government had an enormous, aggressive approach on capital punishment. Suppose you had the government executing the number of people who are being executed on mainland China; suppose capital punishment were widely practiced for a wide range of offenses -- then I think it would disqualify a candidate if he supported capital punishment."
But what of a candidate who took a laissez-faire approach to economic markets? "I think it is intrinsically evil for the strong to say they have no obligation to the weak," Hanink said, "but I don't think that anyone would really go back to Manchester liberalism. I think that all that would happen is for a few of those folks to find their pension fund wasn't secure -- then they would decide the government better have a role in securing their pension funds; for a few just to have bridges fall on their heads -- then they would decide the government should have some sort of OSHA-like bureau. I think a lot of it is a lot of huff and puff; they don't realize just how profoundly the government is involved in the maintenance of society. They're thinking about the last time their property tax got hiked up."
Where one has a choice between two pro-abortion candidates, Hanink thinks it is licit to vote for one or the other only if the voter "were in a position that he could make it extremely clear that these people are woefully deficient, and that he is going to [vote for one candidate] for some other reason than normally would be a very significant and telling reason. But I'm sure not in a position like that; I don't think many people are. I think it would be an unusual situation where someone could justifiably, as a Catholic, vote for either of those two. You have not only the candidates' violation of the natural law, but you have their arrogant violation of Church teaching."
Even Frank McNeirney, national coordinator for Catholics Against Capital Punishment, is unsure whether his issue, capital punishment, should be used as a litmus test for candidates. "We would like each Catholic candidate to follow the advice of the bishops and the pope on such matters," said McNeirney. "We do acknowledge the fact that the bishops and the pope haven't spoken out as strongly against capital punishment as they have against abortion, but the circumstances that have arisen as to why capital punishment should not be used are relatively recent. The pope has said it should only be used in cases where it's the only way to protect the public's safety from a wrongdoer, and given the conditions of modern prisons, it's likely that those conditions would ever apply, especially in western society and in the U.S."
McNeirney said he doesn't think one should tolerate a pro-death penalty stance in a candidate, but one shouldn't say that if candidates "don't toe the mark on what the pope and bishops teach, Catholics should not vote for them." McNeirney thinks Catholic voters should be "as charitable in the case of Catholic politicians who don't support abortion but tolerate it in the sense that they think it shouldn't be banned." Some politicians do that, said McNeirney, "with the realization that if you did cast a law against abortion, it would be like the prohibition law in the 1920s -- if you don't have the national consensus, it would just be ignored by a lot of people and it would lead to a breakdown in respect for authority and law." In both the case of abortion and capital punishment, said McNeirney, it is "for everybody who believes in the consistent pro-life issue to keep working on it and build up that consensus against it, and someday we can hopefully pass constitutional amendments against all the threats to life."
Dr. Charles Rice, professor emeritus of law at Notre Dame Universityin Indiana and author of The Winning Side, Questions on Living the Culture of Life, said that a candidate's support for capital punishment is a "negative;" it is, he said, "one of those things you weigh in the balance, because it is not intrinsically wrong." Support for laissez-faire economic policies is also a "negative," said Rice; but, he said, "if I had a guy who is a really strong, no-nonsense pro-life guy on abortion, euthanasia, contraception, the whole thing, and he's for the death penalty, and he's a libertarian type, I would still vote for him. In the abstract."
For Rice, support for abortion is the "absolutely disqualifying" issue. "If a guy is unwilling to take a stand in favor of protecting the life of the child," said Rice, "then, pardon the expression, the hell with him. With a capital H." The pro-life issue "is going to control," continued Rice, "but that doesn't mean it's automatic. The pro-life guy could be incompetent or a crook, or he could be so wrong on so many other things that you'd rather stay home or vote for the other guy, provided he's not pro-abortion."
Rice said he does not think one should vote for candidates who allow for any abortion exceptions. Even if a candidate said he was in favor of a "life of the mother" exception, Rice said he "would not vote for him -- unless you're talking about a guy who's wrestling with that from the perspective of indirect abortion (such as in a case involving entopic pregnancy.)"
But what of the argument that, in the United States, one could not prudentially get a law outlawing abortion without a life of the mother exception? "Prudentially, you can't get a law that would outlaw any abortion anyway," replied Rice. "Among other things, the Supreme Court won't let you do it. So why play games with this? When you're talking about the life of the mother exception, I can vote for Henry Hyde, I can vote for Chris Smith, because I know where they're coming from. They're looking at this from the Catholic perspective. The ordinary guy who comes out saying 'the life of the mother' is usually not thinking about that. If pressed, he will say, 'yeah, if the mother threatens suicide.' I don't think you can play games with that. I don't think we've gained anything by that. The only way you're going to get any kind of support for restricting early abortions and chemical abortions, by licensing or otherwise, is if you develop the conviction that life has to be absolutely protected."