Supreme Knight Carl Anderson: "Real Change" Entails Getting Rid of Roe
The Cranky Conservative links to a piece by Carl Anderson on Catholics voting their values:
... Imagine for a moment the largest 25 cities in the United States and Canada including New York, Los Angeles, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Dallas, and Vancouver suddenly empty of people. This is what the loss of 40 million human beings would look like. In fact, 40 million is greater than the entire population of Canada.(emphasis added)
What political issue could possibly outweigh this human devastation? The answer, of course, is that there is none.
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It is time to put away the arguments of political spin masters that only serve to justify abortion rights. We have all heard a great deal this year about the need for change. But we are told that one thing cannot change — namely, the abortion rights regime of Roe v. Wade.
“How should Catholics exercise their responsibilities as citizens?” The most important way is to build a culture of life. And to do this requires a new politics.
Building a culture of life and a civilization of love means truly transforming our politics. In this process, dealing with the abortion rights issue is fundamental. While there are certainly many issues that are important to Catholic voters, none has caused more damage to our society than this taking of innocent human life.
It is time that Catholics demand real change — and real change means the end of Roe v. Wade. Real change is possible, but it is difficult. First, the political manipulation of Catholic voters by abortion-rights advocates needs to end. It is time to stop creating excuses for voting for pro-abortion-rights politicians. It is time that Catholics shine a bright line of separation between themselves and all those politicians who defend the abortion-rights regime of Roe v. Wade.
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My Comments:
Well, it's refreshing to read some straightforward sense from my Supreme Knight after having earlier subjected myself to the disingenuous sophistry of a certain sycophantic law professor.
Labels: Catholic Social Teaching, Knights of Columbus, Pro-Life, The Catholic Vote, Voting Your Values
posted by Pro Ecclesia 10:16 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
The contrast between Anderson and Kmiec is stark. Reading that made me proud to be a Knight.
Speaking of Kmiec, looks like he wormed his way into the convention even as Archbishop Chaput was snubbed.
While there are certainly many issues that are important to Catholic voters, none has caused more damage to our society than this taking of innocent human life.
Perhaps so, but there are always trade-offs to voting for one candidate over another. In voting for the candidate more likely to lead to the overturning of Roe, we have to tolerate other evils. For me the question arises: how much damage or evil am I willing to tolerate to see Roe overturned?
how much damage or evil am I willing to tolerate to see Roe overturned?
You would have to be more specific. What "evil" does McCain support that Obama does not that would mitigate the differences between the two on abortion? For instance, if you're talking about the Iraq War, that's somewhat insignificant if you consider that the war is all but over. The only difference is that McCain might leave a few more troops for a little bit longer, but the practical differences are minimal.
I'm not thinking of simply one evil political act or political policy, but really the sum total of those, and whether or not the sum total could ever outweigh the gravity of overturning Roe. In addition, though I didn't mention it originally, there are trade-offs as a function of prioritizing one issue over another. By prioritizing the overturning of Roe, I and the candidate whom I support in that priority place other important issues on the back burner or off the stove altogether. There's nothing immoral about this per se, it's a function of living in time. Nevertheless, in prioritizing an issue I may not be able to give an issue the attention it objectively deserves. In that there is not a moral evil, but we might loosely speak of it as a lack of a good that ought to be there.
The underlying point to my question is that there are trade-offs to prioritizing an issue and those trade-offs should be taken seriously, even if the issue I prioritize is of greater importance than some or all of the others. I am asking if there ever comes a point in which the "evils" we choose to allow in order to see Roe overturned ever become intolerable, and if so, what that point is. I don't have an answer to that question.
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