I don’t really want this blog to get too wildly political, especially this early in election season (but then, now is rather a critical time too) but I was about to frame an extensive answer to comments posted by Johnboy on an earlier thread, and I realized that, if we were going to argue about politics, I might as well make it a head post where everybody could see it. It doesn’t make sense to hide a controversial argument on a thread that probably nobody is reading anymore.

The positions stand thus. In my post on Mitt Romney last month, I mentioned in passing that, among the Republican candidates, I am somewhat partial to John McCain, (though certainly not without some reservations.) I would also be tolerably happy with Romney as the GOP candidate. McCain seems more honest and adult to me, but Romney has, among other things, a slightly more attractive position on stem cell research. In any case, I think I would be tolerably satisfied with either one. I would also probably vote for Fred Thompson in a general election, though it doesn’t look as though I’ll get the chance. I will not, under any circumstances, vote for Rudy Giuliani or Ron Paul. I haven’t decided whether or not I would cast a ballot for Mike Huckabee, but I will say right now that I would be seriously displeased if he were chosen as the GOP candidate for the 2008 presidential election.

Johnboy, for his part, supports Huckabee, pointing out that he is more solidly pro-life than either Romney or McCain (both of whom have supported Roe v. Wade in the past, and both of whom now say that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, but that legislation on this issue should be left in the hands of the states.) The presents us with an interesting situation. Under many definitions, Johnboy and I would both qualify as “single issue voters.” Both of us see abortion as a “make or break” political issue. We disagree, however, on what that should mean for our political decisions.

I suppose there might be two ways of interpreting the term “single issue voter.” On the one hand, you might decide that a candidate who takes a particular position on a particular issue would automatically be disqualified as someone who might receive your vote. On the other hand, you might take a particular issue as the only one that you pay attention to in deciding whether or not to vote; or, at any rate, you might take that issue as a kind of “trump card” so that the candidate that takes the strongest line on your favorite issue automatically gets your vote, regardless of what else he says. For me, abortion is an “exclusive” issue in the first sense. I’m getting the sense that, for Johnboy, it may be “exclusive” in something like the second sense. (Readers may find his comments at the end of the Romney thread linked above; obviously he is welcome to comment further on this one.)

So, to begin with, let’s consider the logic of single-issue voting. In a pamphlet that my husband and I recently picked up at Mass (issued by Our Sunday Visitor) we were told that Catholics should not be single-issue voters. According to the Catholic Bishops’ statement on the matter:

“As Catholics we are not single-issue voters. A candidate’s position on a single issue is not sufficient to guarantee a voter’s support.”

They go on, however, to specify that single-issue voting in my sense can be justified.

“Yet a candidate’s position on a single issue that involves an intrinsic evil, such as support for legal abortion or the promotion of racism, may legitimately lead a voter to disqualify a candidate from receiving support”

The bishops also list a number of other issues (euthanasia, stem cell research, etc.) that should guide our thinking about voting. It’s quite funny, actually, to google this document and see the variety of things that were said about it. As with many documents issued by the bishops, different people seem to have drawn very different conclusions; thus, while some note that it urges Catholics to give priority to pro-life issues, others are more attentive to the wide variety of other concerns that are also listed as relevant. Of course all the media really cares about is the burning question of whether or not Catholics may vote for pro-choice candidates, and different publications felt free to publish their own conflicting conclusions on that point. It’s a shame the bishops couldn’t release something a bit clearer and sterner. Still, in the absence of that, I will offer a humble suggestion that is, I think, in keeping with the bishops’ document, but that hopefully won’t lead anyone too far down the “seamless garment of life” road.

It seems to me that proportionality must be brought into play when deciding how to vote. This is a concept that’s more familiar to people in the context of just war theory, but the basic idea isn’t hard to grasp: we must take into account the moral gravity of a particular issue when deciding whether it’s significant enough to make the difference in our vote. That’s not necessarily to say that we should be out-and-out consequentialists. I think it’s intelligible to decide, based on a particular moral evil, that a candidate simply isn’t worthy of consideration, even if you think that same candidate would do more good for the country overall. In this case, though, there doesn’t seem to be much conflict. The murders of more than a million children a year seem significant enough to outweigh pretty much any other issue on the table in America today, so I’m comfortable endorsing a “no pro-abortion politicians” rule for my voting. It might be a tougher call if we had, say, a pro-choice candidate opposing a pro-life candidate who nevertheless wanted to ban all public worship, seize all Church property, and arrest all priests and religious. As it is, though, the sums aren’t so hard to compute at the moment, because the Republican party is obviously friendlier to Catholic teachings on a number of issues (euthanasia, stem cell research, same-sex marriage). Note that I used a comparative term in praising the GOP; I don’t deny that it still leaves much to be desired. But at the present time, given the present candidates, I don’t think a Catholic has any excuse for voting for the Democrats in the upcoming election, and I think Rudy Giuliani must also be ruled out as an unacceptable choice.

With the exception of Giuliani, though, the Republican candidates are pretty unanimous in supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which is the next critical step in the fight against abortion. In general terms, all except Giuliani pass my first and most basic test. What next? Well, as Johnboy points out, more could still be said about the abortion issue. Some candidates (McCain, Romney) have changed their position somewhat from past years in which they supported the upholding of Roe v. Wade. We might take that as a sign that, no matter what they say now, they can’t really be trusted to stay on the right side of the abortion issue. Furthermore, there may be differences in the long-term goals of each candidate. Romney and McCain seem to indicate that, once Roe v. Wade is overturned, they will be perfectly happy to see the issue worked out on a state level. New York and Oregon can legalize partial birth abortions if they like, while Alabama and Utah can ban everything from the partial birth abortion to the morning after pill. In Romney’s or McCain’s books, that situation sounds fine. No further federal action would be necessary.

Of course I agree with Johnboy that this is far from adequate. We don’t want Roe overturned because we care about the rights of states; we want it overturned because we care about the lives of unborn children! Johnboy suggests that the best thing would be to pass a Federal Right to Life Act that would protect the lives of every person from conception. He thinks Huckabee the most likely candidate to support such a measure, and on that score recommends voting for him. I guess my answer to the Right to Life Act suggestion would be… great idea! And while we’re at it, we should ban no fault divorce. Oh, and let’s pass a law requiring all schoolchildren to sing “Long Live the Pope” at the beginning of each school day! Forgive my sarcasm, but you get the point. A Right to Life Act is a great idea, but at the moment, sadly, it’s a pipe dream. There isn’t a chance that it would ever get through Congress, even if we did elect a president who would propose it… and until Roe is overturned, the law would immediately be struck down by the Court in any case. If we could see a Right to Life Act passed within our lifetimes, then great. I’m certainly all for it. But it’s not going to happen in the next four years.

For this next term, the best-case scenario is that the retirement of one or more Supreme Court justices might allow the Republicans to tip the balance of the Court such that it would be possible to overturn Roe v. Wade. If they could do that, it would be a tremendous gain. Yes, certain liberal states would still give free rein to Planned Parenthood. Yes, an American who desperately wanted an abortion could still find a way to get one. But you would probably see substantial portions of the United States in which abortion would be heavily restricted (perhaps allowed only in cases of rape and incest), and most states would probably consider legislation banning late-term abortions, requiring extended waiting periods, etc. That’s not an ideal world, but the upshot is that the total number of abortions would certainly diminish, probably by hundreds of thousands every year. I call that a significant gain. Also the door would be open for considering further Federal legislation, if sufficient support could ever be mustered.

Gaining a seat in the Court is a real possibility for this next term, but there’s an obvious prerequisite — the Republicans would have to win the general election! If the Democrats win, I think we can more or less expect that Ruth Bader Ginsburg (whose health has been poor for some time now) will retire and be replaced by a younger, healthier, and equally liberal justice. If the Republicans win, she’ll probably try to make it through another term, but health considerations might force her to reconsider. Justice Stevens, for his part, can’t hang on forever (he’s now 87 years old, I believe), and the chances are very good that he’ll have to step down in the next term. Also, there continue to be rumors that Justice Souter, who doesn’t seem very happy with his job, may step down. These are all liberal justices who, under a Democrat, would be replaced with like-minded liberals. If they were replaced by serious conservatives, on the other hand, the situation on the Court would suddenly be very different. In addition to Roe, the Court could have another look at some other problematic rulings, such as Lawrence v. Texas (the decision that, under the name of “privacy”, guaranteed a right to all citizens to engage in acts of sodomy). There are exciting opportunities on the horizon… provided the GOP can win the 2008 election.

There is good reason to think, therefore, that what our next president most needs (as regards abortion) is a desire to see Roe overturned, and more generally, to see conservative justices appointed to the Court. Whether he would support a Right to Life Act is largely irrelevant because it won’t happen anyway. Of course