As our story on the U.S. election (p. 8) makes clear, both the Republican and Democratic parties under their respective leaderships of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are moving in a more pro-abortion direction. (The story does not report on another development, but both Trump and Harris are moving in more pro-gay positions – Trump vowing to fight for the “rights” of homosexuals — although Trump is resisting transgender ideology while his Democratic opponent is enthusiastically embracing it.) The shifts are causing a dilemma for pro-life Americans: can they vote for Donald Trump?
Edward Feser, a conservative Catholic philosopher, has written extensively about the responsibility of pro-life Christians in the election and comes to the conclusion that one may vote for a third-party candidate or not vote in the presidential election, or, if he or she chooses, vote for Trump (but only in swing states where voting for him might matter) to help defeat the larger threat to preborn life in Kamala Harris. Feser quotes authorities such as Pope Benedict XVI and Archbishop Adam Burke and explores natural law to come to his conclusion.
Both the Pope and Archbishop said there could be circumstances where it is necessary to vote, in the words of Archbishop Burke, for a candidate “who supports the limitation of the legality of procured abortion” when he opposes candidates who “do not support the limitation of the evil of procured abortion.” Doing so, however, requires pro-life Christians to firmly and unambiguously speak out against the evil of even limited abortion and work to elect candidates and enact policies that oppose abortion in its totality. In the present case, it means that a pro-life voter for Trump cannot explain away his support of the abortion license or demeaning of pro-life issues.
The problem in voting this way, however, is that it may encourage candidates to stake out slightly less extreme pro-abortion positions in the future, establishing a (deadly) pattern in which no viable consistently pro-life candidates are offered to the public by the main parties.
However the pro-life Christian votes, he or she must not cause scandal by excusing the abortion-with-limits position that their vote is enabling. It is a tricky game to play and one that pro-lifers should resent Donald Trump for putting them in. It is one thing for politicians to sell out pro-life principles; it is quite another for pro-lifers to do so. Effectively, Donald Trump is trying to make the Republican Party like the Conservative Party of Canada, one which tries to appeal to pro-life voters by noting that it is not as extreme as their more pro-abortion opponents. While in any particular election it might ostensibly make sense to vote to limit the damage potentially done by electing abortion extremists, over time the strategy to support the lesser evil becomes the new conservative normal in which pro-life principles are hardly ever articulated, or even punished when they are (ask MP Arnold Viersen about that). The experience of Canadian conservatives provides a useful warning to pro-life Americans.
