My aunt sent me an email today of a column written by a Catholic bishop, Archbishop Charles Chaput. In this column, the priest outlines his experiences when he was in the seminary and early in his priesthood as a man politically active in Robert Kennedy's campaign and Jimmy Carter's campaign. Then he jumps forward to today and a group known as "Roman Catholics for Obama '08." This group, Fr. Chaput claims, took a quote of his out of context. The quote used by the Obama supporters says, "So can a Catholic in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate? The answer is: I can't, and I won't. But I do know some serious Catholics -- people whom I admire -- who may. I think their reasoning is mistaken, but at least they sincerely struggle with the abortion issue, and it causes them real pain. And most important: They don't keep quiet about it; they don't give up; they keep lobbying their party and their representatives to change their pro-abortion views and protect the unborn. Catholics can vote for pro-choice candidates if they vote for them despite -- not because of – their pro-choice views."
Fr. Chaput then claims that the group left out the following sentence, which says, "But [Catholics who support 'pro-choice' candidates] also need a compelling proportionate reason to justify it. What is a 'proportionate' reason when it comes to the abortion issue? It's the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life - which we most certainly will. If we're confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed."
I intend to offer that compelling proportionate reason to justify voting for Barack Obama in November's election. The way I see it, abortion is just one of many issues that hold political sway. Other important issues in the upcoming election include the Iraq war and gas prices, as well as other generally important issues such as free trade versus fair trade, the way we care for those less fortunate, and the environment. This is not me saying that abortion is not an important issue, but that it must be properly weighed in with the entire political spectrum.
So Pope John Paul II, back in the early days of the Iraq war, called it an unjust war. We as the United States went into Iraq after having many other countries as well as the United Nations tell us that we shouldn't. So are we worried about dead children and not dead American soldiers and Iraqis? How are we going to answer to the victims of the Iraq war?
Another important issues: gas prices versus the environment. With the recent increasing demand for gas around the world, we in America have felt the pinch of increased prices because of the increased demand. So do we open up drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? Well I'm not exactly sure, but I see the problems with that solution: it's temporary, but will cause permanent damage to the environment. As Catholics and Christians, we need to remember that the environment was put into our care. Maybe a better solution would be to find alternative fueling. Sure, it might cause some inconveniences to our everyday lives, such as dealing with increasing gas prices or for me and many others, riding a bike to work when possible, but it is our God-given responsibility. How are we going to answer to God for what we did with this responsibility?
Also, I have recently become interested in the topic of fair trade. The basic concept is this: fair trade is the opposite of free trade. NAFTA allows for free trade, which uses underpaid workers in other countries to provide goods for Americans at a lower price. This takes jobs out of America and gives them to people in other countries. They take these lower-paying jobs because they don't have other opportunities. Large corporations (primarily) take advantage of this and pay lower wages to those willing to work for lower wages. Some people say that's okay because they're willing to work for those lower wages, but they're often barely making enough money to feed themselves and their children. Fair trade helps to let people earn living wages. Fair trade is based on relationships with the artisans who make the goods or the workers who grow the (primarily) coffee and cacao beans. Fair trade also focuses on environmental sustainability. For those of you who live in Indianapolis, Global Gifts on 86th St near St. Vincent's is a fair trade store. While I have never been in that store, I have been to a store in Cincinnati called Ten Thousand Villages. Someone there was more than happy to explain how they worked with the artisans in many different countries. Global Gifts is affiliated with Ten Thousand Villages. For more information, go to www.tenthousandvillages.com/. The reason I bring this up is that Republicans are more often supportive of Free Trade to earn the most profits for the corporations. Republicans are also generally less supportive of restrictions for businesses on the way they treat their employees, particularly the generally less well-respected jobs. I'm not going to go into all of that because it would take a book to explain, but if you're interested in more information, I would recommend the book Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Not only does this book make you aware of the human rights violations of many companies throughout the chain of the fast food restaurant business, but it also makes you aware of the dangers to the consumer in the way the fast food industry runs. It's a very interesting book. And how are we going to justify ignoring this to the victims of these operations?
Now onto the issue of abortion itself. I once had a friend who told me that he wanted to get into an argument with me so that he could prove to me that God was pro-choice. I'm glad we've never had that discussion, but I've personally come to the conclusion that God is pro-choice. My justification is simple: God gave us free will. God wants us to have choices. He also wants us to make the right choice. So here's the deal. I have come to the conclusion that you can be strongly pro-life and pro-choice. It's simple. I am pro-life in that I really don't want people to have abortions. The other side will take longer to explain. I am pro-choice in that I see many different problems with attempting to make abortion illegal. First, the Supreme Court works under precedent. With the current precedent having been set with Roe v. Wade, there has to be compelling evidence to overturn that decision. It's legally unlikely to happen. Until the Supreme Court rules to overturn Roe v. Wade, none of the other branches of government can do anything about it. I think, therefore, that fighting to make abortion illegal is a large waste of our time and energy. Second, if abortion is illegal, there will be many illegal abortions performed without the safety standards of legal abortions. While this may reduce the number of abortions, it makes the really desperate women have to have the procedure done in incredibly unsafe and unsterile conditions. I used to hate that argument, but it goes along well with my next point. Third, if abortion is illegal, all these pro-life people will just assume that abortion will go away and those who are still desperate to do something won't have the support networks that may be exactly what they need to not have the abortions in the first place. What I'm saying is that people who need help will not get help because others will stop funding projects like the Gabriel Project to provide material and emotional help to the women facing unplanned pregnancies. So I am pro-choice because I think it is a dangerous avenue to head down by attempting to reduce abortions by making them illegal. My response to the victims of abortion is that I tried, but I wanted to show love to their mothers and fathers rather than a righteous attitude.
Okay, that being said, I do have a confession to make. I don't actively work toward reducing abortions. I was just about to attempt to justify that, but I don't think that's the right way to look at it. Sure, I can come up with a million excuses. And there are a million causes that I think need to be put out in the open. It's hard to place priorities and to choose which issues are the ones I should focus on. It's the same politically, which I think is the point that Fr. Chaput was trying to make. Yet Catholics generally place such a high stock in the abortion issue as a political issue without thinking about other important issues. That's why politics is so hard.
