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.
A January New York Times and CBS poll asked people, “In deciding who you would like to see elected President this year, which one of the following issues will be most important to you:
1. Abortion, or
2. The federal budget deficit, or
3. The economy, or
4. Health care, or
5. Illegal immigration, or
6. Something else?”
The results?
Issue % who think this issue is most important
Economy 56%
Federal budget deficit 15%
Health care 14%
Something else 6%
Illegal immigration 5%
Abortion 3%
DK/NA 2%
That’s right! Only 3% of those polled considered abortion to be the most important issue. More than half considered making more money more important than saving over 1.2 million babies from being hacked to death each year in this country. Five times as many people considered getting the country out of debt more important than saving babies’ lives. Combined, seven out of ten people consider economic issues as more important than the greatest moral travesty of our day.
Those who consider abortion to be the most important issue when electing the President barely beat out those who don’t know what the most important issue is. This is not good. This reveals that people’s moral senses are clouded, that we prioritize money over morality, or that we have decided that this is not a fight worth engaging in anymore (ignorant of the fact that pro-life legislation has been passing in record numbers on the state level, and that it is possible to reverse the abortion policy on the federal level).
ABC conducted an exit poll in the 2010 congressional elections. They, too, found that a person’s views on abortion made no real difference in their selection of political candidates.
View on abortion Voted Democrat Voted Republican
Legal in all cases – 19% 51% 49%
Legal in most cases – 23% 45% 55%
Illegal in most cases – 25% 46% 54%
Illegal in all cases – 28% 50% 50%
Why would half of all people who think abortion should be legal in all cases vote for a Republican who believes that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases? Why would half of all people who think abortion should be illegal in all cases vote for a Democrat who believes that abortion should be legal in all or most cases? The only thing that can explain such behavior is that these people do not consider abortion to be determinative when it comes to choosing political candidates. The issue of abortion takes a back seat to other issues the voter considers to be more important.
I do not mean to offend my Democratic, personally pro-life readers out there, but I cannot understand this kind of thinking. It seems morally and politically confused to me. Are there any pro-life, pro-Democrats out there who would like to explain and defend their thinking on this one? How can you vote for candidates who subscribe to a political platform that is so diametrically opposed to your moral values? How can you support a party that is committed to keeping the practice of killing unborn children legal without any restrictions, and wants you and I to pay for them with our tax dollars? How can you support a party that supports a view of marriage that you believe to be false? How can you support a party that takes the reference to God out of their platform, and then boos when it is reinserted after a political backlash? The Democratic party has no room for your God, and opposes your moral values. So why do you vote for them?
HT: Jivin Jehoshaphat
Thinking to Believe 
September 6, 2012 at 2:07 pm
You said,
“Are there any pro-life, pro-Democrats out there who would like to explain and defend their thinking on this one? How can you vote for candidates who subscribe to a political platform that is so diametrically opposed to your moral values?”
It’s because our goal is to actually reduce abortions, and not just talk about reducing abortions. Last November, Mississippi, one of the most conservative states in the nation, rejected a personhood amendment. You cannot get a hole-in-one on a par 5, but that’s the Republican rhetoric.
If the goal is to actually reduce abortions, the solution is broader education, options, and support. This includes comprehensive contraceptive provision and education. Unfortunately, the conservative Catholic and Evangelical interests actively work politically to reduce contraceptive access and education under the folk belief that it will prompt more promiscuity.
By repeatedly and ineffectively “shooting for the moon,” and working COUNTER to practical abortion-reducing initiatives, these interests are catalyzing the current abortion rate (and teen pregnancies, STD infections, poverty, crime, etc.).
Furthermore, prohibition has a lot of unintended consequences. In a society that starts out partly sympathetic to aborting, prohibition likely won’t reduce abortions, instead pushing them into a massive black market which will increase violent crime, criminalize the otherwise nonviolent (in the habitual sense), and increase social acceptance of abortion as morally neutral. All three of these happened under alcohol prohibition.
You said,
“How can you support a party that … wants you and I to pay for them with our tax dollars?”
Is that part of their platform, that abortions be paid for with tax dollars?
You said,
“How can you support a party that supports a view of marriage that you believe to be false?”
Because the government shouldn’t discriminate (in the neutral sense; “draw conclusions based on differences”) by gender unless there is a *sufficient* and *demonstrable* justification to do so. Alarmism and rumors are neither sufficient nor demonstrable.
You said,
“How can you support a party that takes the reference to God out of their platform, and then boos when it is reinserted after a political backlash?”
Oh my. That’s an extremely distorted account of what actually happened. The omission was not deliberate; it was the unintended result of an entire paragraph rewrite. The people booing were from the contingent that welcomed the omission because they felt it qualified under the ethic of church/state separation, and that contingent has many Christian members, including myself.
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September 6, 2012 at 2:19 pm
I will add that this says nothing about those Republicans that we believe are dishonest about their concern for abortion. Basically, the Republican leadership on abortion is primarily:
1) Part folks that don’t care about abortion but must say they care about it in order to win primaries. They subsequently do nothing.
2) Part folks who “shoot for the moon” ONLY in failed initiative after failed initiative. Like trying to win a football game on 100% Hail Mary plays.
Voting for a person who says they’re pro-life, in other words, doesn’t mean you’re doing anything profitable or constructive in service of reducing abortions.
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September 7, 2012 at 5:25 am
The economy, the federal budget, and our foreign policy, all are MAJOR issues, and are greatly more important right now than abortion. I don’t agree with, nor support abortion, but it should not be the deciding factor in someones’ vote. There are way too many more important issues. If we don’t fix our economy we’ll need to worry more about abortions, because noone will be willing to bring a baby into this world because America will be bankrupt. Moral issues such as this are far down on my list as to whom I vote for. Besides, as bad as the population is getting, we really don’t need millions upon millions of new mouths to feed right now. I think more should be done to prevent unwanted pregnancy, to allow for population control before the pregnancy, instead of abortion. Things that are more important than abortion to me are, first and foremost, the economy and the national debt. The out of control federal reserve, the nation building and backwards foreign policy, the constant stripping away of our freedoms, the health care industry, and an oversized government. Let’s fix this place before we bombard it with millions upon millions of new babies to suffer through this bleak future we are making for ourselves right now.
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September 7, 2012 at 5:42 am
Jason D,
I think Jason W hits on an interesting point that if the economy goes to the wall, there are consequences in regards to the abortion issue and other issues such as child poverty. While abortion may be very high on a moralistic view, some may decide that controlling finances will help keep abortions at current levels rather than exacerbating the problem.
Stan
Education and birth control in the manner I imply from your comment has been done in the UK and has had no impact on reducing pregnancies and abortions. In fact, I think that it has had the opposite affect. I can’t remember the name for this, but its to do with humans balancing the risk; so as we reduce the risk of pregnancy, people are more promiscuous and so the overall risk remains static.
Jason has also written a blog post about this issue quite a while back and uses a “do not smoke but here’s a cigerette if you want one” analogy which was thought provoking.
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September 7, 2012 at 6:26 am
Jason,
Many very sincere and knowledgeable Christians believe that abortion is wrong yet they believe the moral lapses of the Republicans are even more wrong. The two recent wars, in my opinion, are morally wrong. A stock market, supported by Republicans (and many democrats) that manipulates world food prices for wall street profit is morally wrong and the result is tens of millions of children starve to death. The list goes on and on.
Incidentally, since you brought up the subject of inconsistent positions. You believe that many (most ?) children will grow up and eventually go to an eternal hell. Yet, you also believe that aborted babies go to heaven. Would it not, then, often be a blessing for a child to be aborted?
See, I can be consistent. I believe abortion is wrong and I believe that hell is real, but it is not eternal. “…we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.” (1Tim. 4:10)
Randy
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September 7, 2012 at 11:24 am
Stan,
Your goal is to reduce abortions? Then why not just make them illegal? That will definitely reduce abortions.
Can you imagine if we tackled other moral evils in the way you suggest? Rather than outlawing spousal abuse, let’s just educate men not to hit their wives and give them financial incentives.
Yes, government funding for abortions is part of their platform.
As for how sincere Republicans are about their opposition to abortion, I find it amazing that you would question them but not question the sincerity of the pro-choice Democrats. Who do you think is passing all this legislation that restricts abortion? Republicans. The very people you say are just fronting their concern for abortion. No, they are showing their concern by passing legislation to do what they can do to limit it.
Jason
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September 7, 2012 at 11:24 am
Jason W.
So the murder of 1.2 million children per year in this country is not as important as the federal budget? Seriously?!?!
I find your theory about children and economics interesting since it is in the poorest parts of the world that the greatest number of children are born, and the most affluent parts of the world where people are choosing to have fewer children. If anything, wealth causes people to have less kids, not poverty.
Jason
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September 7, 2012 at 11:24 am
Randy,
Are the issues you raise truly more important than abortion? If you saw two evils going on, and only had the chance to stop one, which would you choose? On your left you see before you 1.2 million infants who are about to be thrown into a wood chopper. On your right you see before you major financial fraud about to happen. Which do you stop? I’m assuming you are a morally sane person and would choose to save the children. So why, when those same children are just a few months younger, somehow think that the financial issues matter more?
As for abortion and heaven, yes, I believe that an aborted baby will go to heaven, but that no more makes abortion moral than killing new Christian believers to ensure that they do not backslide in the future and end up going to hell. This is a non-sequitar. Abortion is immoral, period. We do not commit moral atrocities simply because there is some benefit from it. The end does not justify the means.
Jason
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September 7, 2012 at 12:17 pm
Scott, you said,
“Education and birth control in the manner I imply from your comment has been done in the UK and has had no impact on reducing pregnancies and abortions. In fact, I think that it has had the opposite affect.”
This is not true. This is a folk belief. A recent study earlier this year found that a third of qualifying women in the UK are not being properly served in terms of contraceptive education and provision, and PCTs restricting access to contraceptives or contraceptive services had a higher abortion rate than the national average.
The better smoking analogy is, “You already have an endless supply of unfiltered cigarettes, which you are smoking regardless of what I do. You shouldn’t smoke, but here are some free filters.”
Jason Dulle, you said,
“Your goal is to reduce abortions? Then why not just make them illegal? That will definitely reduce abortions.”
You did not read what I wrote with regard to prohibition. You continued,
“Who do you think is passing all this legislation that restricts abortion? Republicans.”
And does that have a 1-to-1 effect on actual abortions? No, it does not. Kansas, for instance, has the 4th most severe abortion restrictions, and yet is in the highest abortion cohort, with 18-31 abortions per 1000 women. It’s a similar story with other states, like Virginia, Georgia, Texas, and Pennsylvania. Whereas in states like Maine, the rate is relatively low with almost no restrictions.
You can’t just go “by your gut.” Look at what prohibition actually accomplishes and does not accomplish. Prohibition only works when the vast majority of people are united in unqualified opposition (which is why your “spousal abuse” analogy is inapplicable). And when prohibition is enacted WITHOUT that unity, it pushes the zeitgeist in the direction of toward moral acceptance or indifference.
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September 7, 2012 at 12:46 pm
Stan,
The idea that prohibition will not reduce the number of abortions is absurd in my opinion. While no one imagines that there will be no more abortions, there is no doubt that the numbers will plummet. Many people take advantage of something when it is legal, but fewer are willing to do that same thing once it is illegal because they know there will be consequences to pay. Making abortion illegal is a deterrent that will significantly reduce the number of abortions in this country.
Your Kansas numbers are flawed, and I knew this before I even looked up the data. How can one have a range of 18-31 abortions per 1000 women? It’s a single number, not a range. They do not have the 4th highest abortion rate in the country. The abortion rate in KS is 19.2 abortions per 1000 women. They are beat out by NY (30.6), CA, DL (26), FL (25), CT (20.9), NV (20.8), and RI (20.7). And this part is important: the reason their numbers are even this high is because 48.4% of all abortions in KS are from non-KS residents! If we only look at KS residents the abortion rate is 10.1 abortions per 1000 women. That ranks them #33! See http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6015a1.htm.
Yes, the pro-life legislation does have an impact on the number of abortions. You need to read Michael New’s 2008 article where he discusses the kinds of pro-life laws passed in various states, and then charts the abortion rates after such legislation was passed. Abortions went down. See http://thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2008.10.24_New_Michael%20J._Pro-Life%20Politicians%20Have%20Made%20a%20Difference,%20Pro-Life%20Laws%20Work_.xml
Also see http://www.citizenlink.com/2011/10/13/arizona-law-leads-to-fewer-abortions/ to read about how a pro-life law in AZ led to an immediate reduction in abortion.
Jason
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September 7, 2012 at 1:00 pm
You misread. I didn’t say they had the 4th highest abortion rate, I said they have “the 4th most severe abortion restrictions.” I gave their abortion rate in terms of a range because I was looking at a map with states divided into ranged cohorts.
You said,
“You need to read Michael New’s 2008 article where he discusses the kinds of pro-life laws passed in various states, and then charts the abortion rates after such legislation was passed. Abortions went down.”
I’m sure legitimate, in-state abortions did go down. And I’m sure they went up in other states, particularly nearby states with lower restrictions, accordingly. It’s odd that you invoked the relevance of cross-state numbers only for a moment. Even your article admits inconclusivity: “We’ll be watching the numbers closely to see what happens. We won’t know the full impact until we see the live births increase.” Abortions going down without live births increasing? Something’s amiss.
If abortion were banned in every state, such that you couldn’t just drive a few hours and back for an abortion, abortion rates will likely not significantly drop in any state; given that there is not a unified opposition to abortion, black market abortion would be commonplace and extremely easy to access. You need the unity before you can prohibit. You must win the hearts and minds of the majority of people BEFORE you start handcuffing. If you start handcuffing too early, you’ll create a nation of lockpickers who resent you, your cause, and the other beliefs with which your cause is correlated.
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September 7, 2012 at 3:53 pm
Stan,
Sorry. I did misread you. I connected “4th” with “highest abortion cohort.” But my overall point still stands: Ranking #34 out of 50 states is hardly what I would call “in the highest abortion cohort.” Indeed, it is on the lower end. So if they do have the 4th most strict abortion restrictions (could you provide your source for this please?), and they rank #34 in abortions, then it seems to bolster my case that pro-life legislation actually reduces the number of abortions.
And pointing to states like Maine that do not have many restrictions, and yet have a low abortion rate, does not show that pro-life legislation does not have an effect on abortion rates. What one needs to do is look at states where abortion restrictions were passed, and see how those impacted the number of abortions in those states in the ensuing years. And that is what Michael New did, and you can see that the legislation had an impact on the number of abortions in those states.
You bring up a good point about cross-state abortions. It would be interesting to see if the number of abortions from out-of-state residents increased in those states that neighbor states who passed a lot of abortion restrictions. Perhaps they did. It might also help to know why people come from out-of-state. My guess is that more often than not it’s due to the lack of abortion providers in their state more than the abortion restrictions. Exceptions to this might be cases in which one state has a parental notification law whereas another state does not.
BTW, Michael New has another article discussing how informed consent laws reduced abortion by an average of 10% above the national average in 8 states. See http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2008/10/123. Also, I noticed that the link I included in the previous comment no longer worked. It should be http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2008/10/125.
As for the live births comment in the article on AZ, it’s not entirely clear to me what their point is. I am guessing that their point is simply that it takes time to register the number of live births. Births take 9 months, whereas abortions only take 1 day. So to determine whether or not the abortion ratio (as opposed to the number of abortions) has truly gone down, they need to determine the number of births. Otherwise, it is possible that the drop in abortions is simply the result of a drop in pregnancies. But on the face of it, what would explain a 30% drop in pregnancies that just so happens to coincide with the new law? I think the new law, coupled with the closing of Planned Parenthood in three AZ cities is the better explanation.
Correct me if I am wrong, but prohibition increased crime, not drinking. It’s not as if outlawing alcohol caused more people to drink. I would bet my bottom dollar that the number of drinkers decreased. The same is true of abortion. If it is outlawed, the number of abortions will immediately decrease. This is obvious. For one, there are a lot of people who are not willing to break the law, or willing to risk fines or jail time. Believe it or not, there are actually law-abiding citizens in this country! Secondly, if abortion providers go underground, it will be much harder for someone to find someone willing to do an abortion. That means abortions will go down.
The purpose and expectation of outlawing abortion is not to eliminate all abortions, just as the purpose and expectation of outlawing rape is not to eliminate all rapes. The purpose of outlawing abortion is to make the value of the unborn clear, and to give the government the legal leverage to prosecute those who murder unborn children.
While I agree with you that its best if society as a whole supports the outlawing of some X, that is not needed before X is outlawed for the law to be effective. Many laws are passed with a slim majority. What makes a law effective is that it is enforced by those responsible for enforcing it.
Jason
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September 8, 2012 at 9:32 am
“So the murder of 1.2 million children per year in this country is not as important as the federal budget? Seriously?!?!”
Yes Jason, I do believe that. What some young girl who decides to do after making some bad decisions is not going to cause the collapse of the economy, joblessness, or the next depression. The next president we pick will have the biggest influence on whether or not people will have a job in the future. Yes I think that is more important.
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September 8, 2012 at 11:04 am
Jason,
You asked me “Are the issues you raise truly more important than abortion?” My answer is that they are comparable. A child dies every six seconds from hunger – about 6 million each year. In addition, approximately a billion people are chronically undernutritioned – they go to bed hungry. The wars have killed, maimed and psychologically destroyed hundreds of thousands, probably millions.
The Stock Market people will argue they don’t cause food prices to rise – they claim they are only investing and reacting to world conditions, such as droughts. Nonesense. They own yachts and mansions, and pay themselves huge bonuses and that money is generated by driving food prices higher, while children starve.
As I stated in an earlier post – Neither Jesus, nor Paul, nor any New Testament writer said anything about abortions, even though abortions were common in that day. They said a lot about feeding the poor and helping others.
Randy
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September 19, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Jason W,
When someone tells me that money is more important than preventing the slaughter of 1.2 million children, I know one of at least three things must be true: (1) I am dealing with a self-centered, selfish individual who cares only about himself; (2) I am dealing with a sociopath who cannot tell the difference between right and wrong; (3) I am dealing with someone who does not believe that abortion is truly the murder of innocent human beings. I hope that #3 is the reason you consider finances as more important than protecting innocent human beings from being murdered for convenience.
Let me ask you a question. What if the issue we were facing was not the slaughter of 1.2 million unborn babies, but 1.2 million 6-month old babies. Would you still think that the most pressing issue of our day was the economy? If you say no, then it reveals to me that the problem is that you do not think the unborn are truly human beings with intrinsic value. If you say yes, then I will have to conclude that #1 or #2 above is true of you.
Jason
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September 19, 2012 at 2:00 pm
Randy,
You did not answer my question. Which do you stop? The children being thrown into the wood chopper, or the financial fraud?
As for the NT writers not saying anything about abortion, a few things need to be said. First, it doesn’t follow that because X is not condemned, therefore X is not wrong. Jesus never said anything about spousal abuse, but no one thinks therefore that it is ok to beat one’s spouse or that we have to suspend judgment on the matter.
Secondly, the NT authors didn’t need to specifically mention abortion to condemn it. Murder does not have an age limit such that you have to say, “Don’t murder people when they are unborn, newborn, 10, 20,…90.” You simply say, “Don’t murder.” What if I argued that it’s wrong to kill old people and someone responded by saying, “The Biblical authors never addressed this situation” as if that makes the issue unimportant or morally uncertain?
Thirdly, the early church clearly saw the Biblical teaching on the value of the unborn and the prohibition of murder to apply to the unborn because the early church fathers wrote about it and condemned it. There was no debate in the church about the morality of abortion or infanticide.
The fact of the matter is that murder is one of the worst evils we can commit. While poverty, hunger, physical injuries from war, and psychological damage are evils, they are not as bad as murder. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that murder makes it impossible for someone to experience any other kind of evil. Furthermore, while God opposed fraud and oppression, He did not demand the death penalty for those crimes. He did, however, for murder. Why? Because murder is a direct attack on God Himself since mankind bears His image. There should be no question that murder is worse than other forms of evil, and if abortion is murder, then it logically follows that abortion is more important than the other issues you raise, as important as they are.
Jason
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September 19, 2012 at 5:57 pm
So it would be better to have billions of people living in the U.S. and live as a third world country with millions dying of starvation every day than abortion and a good economy? I don’t like abortion, and I am pro-life, but the fact remains that what we need to worry about is the future of this nation, or there will be no reason to even get pregnant. The unemployment rate is near 9 percent and 1.2 million more people right now would cripple the economy. Yeah sure, it will be much better to have a family of 7 when a gallon of milk costs 1,475 dollars. The economy is about the survival of billions, how is that being selfish? The reality is, if we don’t address this economy now, we will end up as the next great economic collapse. You would rather look the other way on economic issues and bring millions upon millions of more people into this nation, and with breeding, over time, ends up being billions. All while the economy collapses under your feet while there is now an unemployment rate creeping up near 50 percent because there are also more people in the U.S. than this economy can support. Your theory of don’t fix the economy and let it collapse while bringing millions more into this nation is the most surefire way to destroy our children’s future. You’re not worried about their future, you’re not worried about this whole nation’s future. You’re purist attitude is not the most beneficial for our nation. It sounds good, but it doesn’t work in the real world.
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September 20, 2012 at 1:23 pm
I do want to reemphasize the fact that I agree with your stance on abortion. My stance is that it should be illegal except in cases of mother’s life, rape and incest. I agree with all of your analogies, and consider abortion the murder of innocent children for convenience. I agree with your stance, just not the hierarchy of it’s order. My economic exaggeration in the last post is to emphasize the importance of choosing the economic problems over abortion. The point really is moot, since my vote is going to Gary Johnson, who I agree with on Austrian economics, as well as his stance on abortion, which is only for mother’s life, rape, or incest.
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September 20, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Jason W,
You didn’t answer my hypothetical question. Which would you consider more important? The economy, or saving the 1.2 million 6 month old infants who were being slaughtered at the mother’s request?
As for your question, yes, it would be better to live in poverty than to be guilty of murder. At least we would be alive. The same can’t be said for the unborn babies we’ve murdered. Poverty is not a moral evil, whereas abortion is. And even if you disagree that poverty is not a moral evil, clearly abortion is a worse evil because the moral evil committed against the baby is so great that he will never get the chance to experience any other kinds of moral evils. Any evil that eliminates the possibility of experiencing any future goods or evils is the supreme evil.
You present yourself as if being poor makes it not worth living. For your sake, I hope you maintain a good job for the rest of your life, otherwise you may end up committing suicide. There is more value to life than finances.
Besides, do you honestly believe that Republican economic policies could turn us into a third world country? C’mon! You may think that their policies are inferior to the Democrats’, and that we’ll do better under Democratic economic policy, but it’s not as if the choice is between life and poverty under the Republicans, and death and wealth under the Democrats. If anything, Republicans will do a better job with the economy because they believe in creating wealth rather than redistributing existing wealth, but I digress.
By the way, why do you think abortion should be legal in cases of rape and incest if you consider abortion to be the “murder of innocent children.” Are the children conceived by rape or incest guilty of a crime that warrants their murder? If they are just as innocent as any other unborn child, why is it ok to kill them just because of the circumstances under which they were conceived?
Jason
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September 20, 2012 at 7:37 pm
You talk as if it is an open and shut decision, yet 50 percent of America disagrees with you. It is obviously not as simple as you make it seem to be. As for your hypothetical, if it was legal, there would be nothing I could do. I am voting for a candidate that shares my views on abortion, so I am doing my part. Rape is brought about by an evil an unwilling act, if a woman does not want to have that child, it is not my place to force her to have it. That is her moral decision, not mine. Same goes for incest, it is usually unwilling, and it is also unnatural. There are reasons there are laws against incest. Trying to be judge and juror over everyone else’s moral decisions is more of a Christian thing to do. I guess that is why it doesn’t top my list.
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September 20, 2012 at 8:02 pm
A 50/50 moral issue doesn’t take precedence over a collapsing economy. It would be different it was something most people agreed with, but it is not. As polarizing a subject as that, it is more important to focus on what the government is for, and it’s first priority is not to legislate morality, but to govern according to the constitution. Economy should always take precedence in government.
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September 21, 2012 at 5:03 am
Imagine the wealth and economic prosperity the 50-60 million (or so) murdered humans (since the late 1970’s when abortions became legal) could have generated had they been given the right to life as promised by the U.S. constitution. All our economic woes might otherwise be solved, should they had but lived (e.g. social security comes to mind).
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September 21, 2012 at 8:15 am
Like it or not, our government is a secular government, as it should be. We cannot base laws off of one particular religion. Religious people seem to want to govern everyone according to their Bible. Well that’s not the way it works. That is why we govern according to the constitution, not the Bible. There are several hundreds, if not thousands of different religions in America, no one religion should be catered to by the government. This is why moral issues such as this are on the bottom of EVERY poll conducted about these issues. Government should always focus on issues such as the economy as their top priority. Can you find me one poll where America in a whole agrees that abortion should top the list? No, you cannot, because in every poll you look at, the economy is up near or above 50 percent, while abortion is anywhere from 0 to 3 percent. I haven’t seen a poll yet where it topped 3 percent. So most of America agrees, that the government’s first priority should always be the economy, jobs, and the national debt, as it should be.
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September 25, 2012 at 11:55 am
Jason W,
You still haven’t answered my hypothetical scenario, or my question in the last paragraph. Why?
It is an open and shut question. The fact that 50% of Americans are ignorant of the science or can’t think ethically does not mean that the science and moral logic are not clear (which is why I find your comments about this being a secular nation that can’t enforce a religious position, off-base). If an unborn child is a human being from the moment of conception onward, and it is morally wrong to take the life of a human being without sufficient justification, and if the circumstances of conception are not sufficient justification, then it follows that abortion in the case of rape and incest is morally wrong. While it is an unfortunate scenario, the innocent baby should not have to pay for the crimes of a morally deranged individual.
And the last I checked, we don’t gauge what is right or wrong by Gallop polls. The fact that so many people are more concerned about money than the murder of 1.2 million babies each year is not a good reason to ignore abortion in favor of economic matters, but a good reason for Americans to question their priorities.
As for “forcing” people, all laws force people into doing or abstaining from certain things. That’s the nature of the law. Since you vote, you obviously support forcing people to do certain things. You can’t act as if this is a Christian thing.
And if people are trying to do morally heinous acts like kill their children because they were conceived under horrible circumstances, then they should be prevented from doing so by force of law.
Jason
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September 25, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Aaron,
Excellent point! Among the 50 million or so aborted babies, at least 30 million would be in the work force and contributing to our economy.
Jason
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September 25, 2012 at 1:47 pm
“You still haven’t answered my hypothetical scenario, or my question in the last paragraph. Why?”
Because Johnson agrees on both, why should I have to choose? I am voting for a Pro-life candidate, we are arguing over the weight of the issue, you’re hypothetical is a semantic I don’t need to answer.
“If an unborn child is a human being from the moment of conception onward, and it is morally wrong to take the life of a human being without sufficient justification, and if the circumstances of conception are not sufficient justification, then it follows that abortion in the case of rape and incest is morally wrong.”
That is a religious based view that cannot carry over into a whole nations’ point of view. Again you are trying to support a religious belief that is not supported by the whole country. This is what I mean by secular. If it was up to Christians, we would not even be allowed contraception. Your meaning behind words such as justification, sufficient, moral, and conception, vary from person to person, and cannot be held as absolute.
If it was so cut and dry like you say, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, because the laws would have changed 39 years ago!
Here is an old article on a similar law that didn’t pass…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/13/protect-life-act-passes-house-of-representatives_n_1009876.html
An excerpt:
H.R. 358, introduced by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), goes beyond the issue of taxpayer dollars to place actual limits on the way a woman spends her own money. The bill would prevent a woman from buying a private insurance plan that includes abortion coverage through a state health care exchange, even though most insurance plans currently cover abortion.
An even more controversial aspect of the bill would allow hospitals that are morally opposed to abortion, such as Catholic institutions, to do nothing for a woman who requires an emergency abortion procedure to save her life. Current law requires that hospitals give patients in life-threatening situations whatever care they need, regardless of the patient’s financial situation, but the Protect Life Act would make a hospital’s obligation to provide care in medical emergencies secondary to its refusal to provide abortions.
“I was pregnant, I was miscarrying, I was bleeding,” she said on the House floor Thursday. “If I had to go from one hospital to the next trying to find one emergency room that would take me in, who knows if I would even be here today. What my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are trying to do is misogynist.” – Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.)
To quote a comment:
“I was also in a very similar place as the woman in the article. Before we had my first child, I had an ectopic pregancy. The pregnancy was supposed to have been terminated because it was life threatening. In the end, my tube ruptured and I never had to “make the choice”. I can’t imagine being turned away from a hospital in a time like that. Now I am 35, have had 3 c-sections and my uterus is compromised. My CATHOLIC hospital refused to tie my tubes during my last c-section. I have been told that if I get pregant again, my uterus could rupture resulting in loss of the baby and my own life. For medical reasons, I can not take the pill, and my husband is forced to get an expensive vasectomy. There need to be options for women like me! ”
I agree with what you are saying, but you see, I am looking at it from everyone’s perspective, and you have to realize that everyone does not have your perspective, and you cannot just pass laws according to your religion. Which is why I hope Rick Santorum never gets into office, I would NEVER vote for him. The fact that half of this nation does not agree with your religious view on this DOES matter. Again, that is why this is a secular nation, to include ALL worldviews.
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September 25, 2012 at 2:01 pm
You are having a republican vs democrat debate. I am libertarian. I am simply giving a libertarian view. As Ron Paul has said:
As Ron Paul states, murder is not in the constitution, neither is abortion, this is not what the federal government is for. This is a state level decision. So you ask me if I support laws on the federal level, and I say no either way. Per the constitution, YES, economy should come first at the federal level.
“It is now widely accepted that there’s a constitutional right to abort a human fetus. Of course, the Constitution says nothing about abortion, murder, manslaughter, or any other acts of violence. Criminal and civil laws were deliberately left to the states.
I consider it a state-level responsibility to restrain violence against any human being. I disagree with the nationalization of the issue and reject the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in all 50 states. Legislation that I have proposed would limit fe4deral court jurisdiction of abortion, and allow state prohibition of abortion on demand as well as in all trimesters. It will not stop all abortions. Only a truly moral society can do that.” – Ron Paul
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November 16, 2012 at 11:25 am
Jason W,
You said that my statement, “If an unborn child is a human being from the moment of conception onward, and it is morally wrong to take the life of a human being without sufficient justification, and if the circumstances of conception are not sufficient justification, then it follows that abortion in the case of rape and incest is morally wrong” is a religious based view. How so? Where does any religious doctrine come into play here. It’s a matter of logic. If it is wrong to kill X, then it is wrong to kill X regardless of how X came into being. If you told me that it is just as wrong to kill a 2 year old conceived through natural means as it is to kill a 2 year old conceived through cloning, would it make any sense for me to say that this is a religious argument? Of course not. It’s a matter of logic.
As for contraception, most Christians do not oppose contraception. Don’t confuse the Catholic position with Christianity in general (and don’t assume that most practicing Catholics agree with or follow the teachings of the Catholic Church on this matter).
I’m not opposed to abortions in the case of ectopic pregnancy or in the case of saving the life of the mother, so the bill you mentioned has no relevance to me.
Jason
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February 28, 2013 at 1:29 pm
[…] Source: https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/abortion-matters-little-in-peoples-political-choices/ […]
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March 13, 2013 at 11:10 am
I vote very much like you, Jason. To me, abortion is by far the most significant issue. Not just because I am pro life, but because abortion is so liberally and prevalently carried out. It is by far the single largest atrocity in the modern age, and so it is my responsibility as a Christian and a human being to do what I can to stop or at least reduce it. If abortion was illegal (or perhaps legal in extreme cases) and not likely to change, I would probably rank it much less of an important issue to me.
In general, I’d suggest the following as reasons for the lack of interest in the abortions issue:
1) Whether for or against it, people may view it as a “closed” issue, or one with too much momentum to overcome, and so they focus their efforts elsewhere.
2) They may vote simply on a personal level, and abortion may not be (or conceivably be) relevant to them.
3) Issues like the economy and health care are covered far more in the media and more prominently in political platforms and debates (being more universal and less controversial issues), and so they come to the forefront of people’s minds.
4) People think issues like the economy are far more central to the government’s role and responsibility than personal matters like abortion.
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March 13, 2013 at 6:03 pm
The government is here to govern. It’s main purpose is not to govern morality. When an issue such as this is so evenly split, it is best for government to stay out of it as much as possible, and leave that choice to be between each individual woman and God. It’s much harder to legislate morality than it is to fix the economy, and other things central to the government, especially since the government is supposed to stay as secular as possible due to freedom of religion. That is why it is best to base your voting decision on government issues, and try to maintain your own morality instead of thinking the government is supposed to make that decision for everyone.
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March 13, 2013 at 8:14 pm
Except that the government does govern morality – and most people think it should – when it comes to human rights. And there is no need to invoke religion when it comes to abortion; people can and do oppose it as a secular issue of human rights (right to live). I certainly agree that it becomes difficult for the government when people can’t agree on it, though an arguable approach in that case would be to err on the side of caution and protect life. At any rate I certainly believe that those who believe it is an issue of basic human rights should vote accordingly. They would offer it to their consciences and humanity to promote not just a personal moral choice but authoritative governmental protection of the unborn.
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March 13, 2013 at 8:16 pm
*offer = owe
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March 13, 2013 at 9:07 pm
Government protects human rights, yes, and as soon as that fetus is born, it has rights. Before it is born, there is a gray area on what people believe. The government only legislates morality on certain cut a dry issues. The rights of the woman supersedes that of the rights of the unborn child, because there is no clear cut agreement on when the fetus has rights.
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March 14, 2013 at 3:22 pm
Jason W,
Why should popular opinion have anything to do with whether or not we grant rights to some group X? Most people in days gone by did not think people with dark skin were fully human (or at least not worth as much as a white person). Since there was such a gray area in what people believed, should we have never emancipated the slaves or extended equal civil rights to black people?
It’s simply not true that the government only legislates on matters that are cut and dry, or for which public opinion is not divided. Just consider abortion itself. The Supreme Court itself admitted in Roe that they did not know whether the unborn was human. And the public was highly divided on the issue back then (and remains divided). The same could be said regarding same-sex marriage today.
What should matter is the evidence, and the evidence makes it clear that the unborn are human from conception, and thus should have the same right to life that you and I have.
Jason
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March 14, 2013 at 5:37 pm
“They admitted they did not know whether the unborn was human…”
and thus they left the choice up to the woman. Exactly my point.
I never said popular opinion should have anything to do with it. I said if it is something the government can’t agree upon, then their approach is to protect the liberty of the people. Which is why rights are granted to the woman, to protect her freedom of choice. It is the same approach as far as protecting the liberty and freedom of the slaves. No, popular opinion shouldn’t have anything to do with government decisions, but if the government is unsure of what decision to make, they try to protect the right to life, and liberty. If they are unsure of life, the decision automatically becomes based on liberty.
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March 14, 2013 at 6:13 pm
The government should NOT make laws based on personal opinion, they should make laws according to the constitution. You see, I think you all are thinking you should vote for who agrees with your personal opinions. I vote according to what politician bases their decisions on the constitution.
Personally I agree with your personal opinions, and I am pro-life. I think anyone who murders their own child, born or unborn, is a vile wretched human being. But I also believe in the constitution.
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March 15, 2013 at 12:22 am
If they didn’t know whether the unborn are human are not, that was the best reason not to let people kill the unborn. What would you think of the foreman of a demolition crew who wasn’t sure whether there were still people left inside the building or not, but gave his crew the liberty to start tearing it down anyway? Humans are intrinsically valuable beings, so we should err on the side of precaution.
You portray it as if the government’s stance is neutral. It is anything but neutral. They have clearly sided with the pro-abortion side of the fence. They are not protecting the unborn, but allowing them to be killed. How is that neutral?
If the unborn are human, then they have the same right to life and liberty that the mother has. The important question is the biological and moral status of the unborn. It makes no sense to say “Go ahead and kill it” if we are not sure what we are killing.
Jason
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March 15, 2013 at 12:22 am
Laws are not made based on the Constitution, but within the parameters of the Constitution.
If you believe in the Constitution, and if you believe in science, then you should support the government prohibiting abortion because the Constitution is meant to protect human rights. If the unborn are human beings, then they have the same rights as the born and the government should protect them.
Jason
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March 15, 2013 at 1:34 am
Parameters, that changes everything now, lol. Your parables are reaching, and you love to prop up strawmen don’t you? I bet you wish all the other millions upon millions of people agreed with you? Everyone else who believes different from you is wrong huh? You make it sound so easy, if that was the case, why have Republicans never repealed roe vs wade? Yet you keep basing your whole vote on that. Well good luck, maybe someday you’ll get your Rick Santorum in office.
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March 15, 2013 at 5:32 am
Sorry, repeal was the wrong choice of words, but you get what I mean.
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