Thinking to Believe

In my last post I referenced a 2010 exit poll which found that people’s views on abortion had little impact on their selection of political candidates.  Other data from the poll, however, may shed some light on why people vote for the parties and candidates that they do.   

In the comments section of a previous post (Opposed to abortion? Your politics may say otherwise) I put forth my opinion that many pro-lifers vote for Democrats out of financial concerns.  Contrary to my theory, however, they did not find that one’s vote had much to do with one’s present economic circumstances.  Indeed, it didn’t even have much to do with their religious affiliation (or lack of one)[1], age[2], gender,[3] or level of education[4] either. 

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In my opinion, abortion is the greatest moral issue of our day.  Nothing is more unjust than depriving innocent human beings of their God-given, inalienable right to life simply because we are inconvenienced by them.  For that reason, the issue of abortion figures prominently in my political affiliations and the way I vote.  While I am not a one-issue voter, and while I do not think it is always wrong to vote for a pro-choice political candidate (there are some political offices for which one’s personal views on abortion are irrelevant on a practical level), I will almost always vote for the pro-life candidate even if I have fundamental disagreements with him on other matters.  It’s not that I think economic issues do not matter, or that foreign policy does not matter, but that I think the moral injustice of abortion is much more important than these others. 

That is why I was disheartened to read the results of two polls which sought to determine what voters think the most important issues are when choosing the candidates they will give their vote to.  

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