Can Catholics Vote Democrat?

[Sy_Noe]

Sad that this thread has turned purely into an abortion thread. From many posts, if a pro choice JFK ran against a Rep. Adolf Hitler, people would vote for the latter. (Yes bad example but made to make point)

Catholics CAN and DO Vote Democrat. I agree we really really NEED more parties, 3, 4, or even more. My friend is from Holland and they have at least THIRTEEN parties.

When you take any 2 groups, it becomes an US VS THEM mentality. So ALL Democrats are wrong, or all Republicans are wrong.

I have voted for both Dems and Republicans and look at their stance on other issues besides abortion.

So the answer is Yes Catholics can vote democrat.

And just imagine the chaos here when Hillary wins in 2016

Yes it is sad especially after Pope Francis was quoted earlier telling Catholics they can not only insist on abortion, gay marriage and contraception, that even he himself hadn’t spoken much about those things, and that Catholics have to find a new balance. So I think I may just quit reading. Your example made the point though you were trying to make. And I too have voted for candidates from both in the past. Yet if Hillary is her party’s nominee in 2016, I will vote for her over any of the Republican candidates being mentioned. I’m not sure the political chaos here will be any different than it’s been though.

 

[estesbob]

Yes it is sad especially after Pope Francis was quoted earlier telling Catholics they can not only insist on abortion, gay marriage and contraception, that even he himself hadn’t spoken much about those things, and that Catholics have to find a new balance. So I think I may just quit reading. Your example made the point though you were trying to make. And I too have voted for candidates from both in the past. Yet if Hillary is her party’s nominee in 2016, I will vote for her over any of the Republican candidates being mentioned. I’m not sure the political chaos here will be any different than it’s been though.

A Catholic should not turn to a Non-Catholic when determining what Church teaching is.

 

[Path_Finder]

Yes it is sad especially after Pope Francis was quoted earlier telling Catholics they can not only insist on abortion, gay marriage and contraception, that even he himself hadn’t spoken much about those things, and that Catholics have to find a new balance. So I think I may just quit reading. Your example made the point though you were trying to make. And I too have voted for candidates from both in the past. Yet if Hillary is her party’s nominee in 2016, I will vote for her over any of the Republican candidates being mentioned. I’m not sure the political chaos here will be any different than it’s been though.

I’ll make sure once again, I will not vote for a baby being destroyed in their mother, possibly a baby of color, I won’t vote for Biden or Clinton or any of the other Democratic candidates mentioned.

 

[estesbob]

I’ll make sure once again, I will not vote for a baby being destroyed in their mother, possibly a baby of color, I won’t vote for Biden or Clinton or any of the other Democratic candidates mentioned.

I am always somewhat puzzled when those who have left the Faith lecture us who have remained on Catholic teaching.

 

[Ridgerunner]

And as I outlined above, if you look at the estimated war-related mortality rate in Iraq between 2003 and 2007, it resulted in a higher death rate than the 1.1 million abortions per year here in the U.S.

If the point you’re making that Bush’s Supreme Court justice appointments outweigh everything else he did, then you’re kinda making my point for me. My fundamental contention is that trying to overturn Roe, with a laser-like focus on only that issue, is causing pro-life Catholics to undermine the culture change we need to actually end abortion: the New Evangelization. I’m not arguing for Obama at all. I’m saying that the title of this thread illustrates the problems the Church is facing.

What I’ve said and argued here is that if we’re going to end abortion, then look at the abortion rates before 1940 and see what was causing women to get abortions then, when abortion was illegal and had no chance of becoming legal. Still, Taussig (1931) estimated that there were 700,000 abortions nationwide annually, which corresponds to a rate similar to today. Now, with the stomach drug Cytotec being readily available on black markets, including in Texas. I’m saying that voting is not the way to tackle this problem. We need a new strategy for ending abortion, not the same one put together in 1975 by U.S. bishops. That means what Pope Francis has been hinting when he has said that Catholics need to “initiate processes” instead of “occupying spaces.” It’s the way the earliest Church spread in the pagan world around it, in a world where newborn infants could be left outside to die if they were unwanted, and where women were taxed into poverty if they didn’t get married. The Church at that time offered a different approach, not a legal one, but an evangelical one.

I don’t question that there were hardships in Iraq before 2003, or that there are things you know about Iraq. But when you asserted that George Bush claimed Al Quaeda and Saddam were allied, you were just wrong. He never said that.

There are a lot of assertions about the number killed in the Iraq War, ranging from about 100,000 to astronomical figures. Regardless, most numbers count all persons killed, including those killed by terrorists. Ally-caused casualties are admitted to be low among almost all sources.

And there are varying numbers about pre-Roe abortion rates as well. As I recall, even Guttmacher admits they were much lower previously.

I realize it’s the Democrat mantra to say abortion can only be opposed by a change to the “hearts and minds” of Americans. That’s to give people an excuse to vote for pro-abortion candidates and keep abortion on demand legal. Unfortunately, too many people equate “legal” with “moral”. Support the candidate and you’re supporting the evil espoused by the candidate. That’s plain. The U.S. is among the most abortion-permissive societies in the world, legally; not because “hearts and minds” changed in its favor, but because judges decreed it.

Now, the abortion-promoters want to say “oh, but you can’t reverse it that way. You have to change hearts and minds”. An excuse for evil.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Yes it is sad especially after Pope Francis was quoted earlier telling Catholics they can not only insist on abortion, gay marriage and contraception, that even he himself hadn’t spoken much about those things, and that Catholics have to find a new balance. So I think I may just quit reading. Your example made the point though you were trying to make. And I too have voted for candidates from both in the past. Yet if Hillary is her party’s nominee in 2016, I will vote for her over any of the Republican candidates being mentioned. I’m not sure the political chaos here will be any different than it’s been though.

The Pope didn’t say it was okay for Catholics to support abortion, homosexual marriage or contraception. He just plain didn’t.

 

[mary_bobo]

Yes it is sad especially after Pope Francis was quoted earlier telling Catholics they can not only insist on abortion, gay marriage and contraception, that even he himself hadn’t spoken much about those things, and that Catholics have to find a new balance. So I think I may just quit reading. Your example made the point though you were trying to make. And I too have voted for candidates from both in the past. Yet if Hillary is her party’s nominee in 2016, I will vote for her over any of the Republican candidates being mentioned. I’m not sure the political chaos here will be any different than it’s been though.

If you want something different, get rid of Harry Reid. He is the one causing chaos with more than 350 bills on his desk that he will not bring up for a vote lest one of them pass. That is not what he is being paid for. We can keep going round and round about abortion. Catholics know, or should know, and they do if they read threads like this on the forum, that assisting pro-abortion candidates is wrong. Even the avowed pro-life Dems are in a party that has the promotion of abortion at any time for any reason in their platform will be impotent in changing the “settled law”. IMO, that puts them in the no vote column.

In summary, one can vote however they wish, but Catholics know what they should do. That some do not is between them and God.

 

[Dawnia]

Yes it is sad especially after Pope Francis was quoted earlier telling Catholics they can not only insist on abortion, gay marriage and contraception, that even he himself hadn’t spoken much about those things, and that Catholics have to find a new balance. So I think I may just quit reading. Your example made the point though you were trying to make. And I too have voted for candidates from both in the past. Yet if Hillary is her party’s nominee in 2016, I will vote for her over any of the Republican candidates being mentioned. I’m not sure the political chaos here will be any different than it’s been though.

He also said this

“Every child who, rather than being born, is condemned unjustly to being aborted, bears the face of Jesus Christ, bears the face of the Lord, who even before he was born, and then just after birth, experienced the world’s rejection."

and this

“Among the vulnerable for whom the church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this.

 

[Sy_Noe]

The Pope didn’t say it was okay for Catholics to support abortion, homosexual marriage or contraception. He just plain didn’t.

No one said he did. But he did say you can’t only insist on those issues and told you not to talk about them all the time and to find a new balance. That’s not someone lecturing as Estesbob says who has left the faith. It’s the Pope. Yet as the Crow said another abortion thread.

 

[zz912]

No one said he did. But he did say you can’t only insist on those issues and told you not to talk about them all the time and to find a new balance. That’s not someone lecturing as Estesbob says who has left the faith. It’s the Pope. Yet as the Crow said another abortion thread.

That’s not what he said. That is intentionally distorting his words and intention.

 

[estesbob]

No one said he did. But he did say you can’t only insist on those issues and told you not to talk about them all the time and to find a new balance. That’s not someone lecturing as Estesbob says who has left the faith. It’s the Pope. Yet as the Crow said another abortion thread.

Can you give us link to exactly what he said-especially the part about how finding a balance meant a Catholic could support abortion.?

 

[fnr]

ct.dio.org/bishops-column/message/politics-and-moral-complexity-gods-law-comes-first/read.html

Thank you for that well-written column from Bishop Paprocki.
“Material cooperation” means that you don’t share the intent but your actions nevertheless are instrumental in bringing about the evil outcome. Without getting into all the layers of complexity in defining “material cooperation,” suffice it to say that, as a rule, Catholics should avoid voting for candidates that would involve them in cooperation with the wrongdoing of politicians. Voting for a candidate who promotes public funding for abortion makes you morally complicit in the grave evil of killing some of our fellow human beings. Not every case of material cooperation with evil is unjustifiable, but every case requires us to think about whether it is justified, and this is acutely important with a widespread grave injustice such as abortion. As indicated earlier, it is not a simple analysis.
I totally agree. It’s not simple.

But before making any moral judgments, let’s actually analyze the situation given the factual basis as I’ve laid it out. I welcome any data anyone else has found.

Fact 1: Taussig (1931) estimated that annually, there were 700,000 abortions per year. In the abstract of his piece, he says, “All efforts to control the incidence of criminal abortion by legislation have resulted in failure.” He wrote when abortion was illegal everywhere. Some of those were what we would now call a “spontaneous abortion,” but he mostly focuses on “criminal abortion.” He also published a book in 1910 The Prevention and Treatment of Abortion which says (on page 5) that “Furthermore, I should be inclined to add as a reason for the frequency of abortions at this time the fact, that usually it is not until the second period has been passed, that women feel so sure of being pregnant as to be willing to submit to instrumental interference. The reason seems especially weighty when we consider the fact that such criminal interference is probably the direct cause of almost half of all abortions.”
This suggests that abortion rates in the 1930s were between 50% and >100% of today’s.

Fact 2: Cytotec is a stomach ulcer drug that includes a black-box warning that it’s an abortifacient. So it’s being sold throughout the world, including in Texas flea markets as a way to do a “DIY abortion.” In 2010, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote:
*“Could the decades-long global impasse over abortion worldwide be overcome — by little white pills costing less than $1 each? That seems possible, for these pills are beginning to revolutionize abortion around the world, especially in poor countries.”
*
Fact 3: If Roe v. Wade is overturned, the legal status of abortion becomes a state matter. In many states abortion will remain legal, and it doesn’t take many to see a U.S. where the majority of abortions remain legal. CA+NY+IL+MA+MD+OR+WA and statistically speaking, you’re there.

Fact 4: Between 1971-1972, New York state made abortion legal. As reported in Joyce et al. (2012), NY had an abortion rate (per 1,000 women aged 15-44) of 29.4. Abortion remained illegal in neighboring states, but the rate of abortions performed in New York state on their residents increased: 15.2 in New Jersey, 10.3 in Connecticut and Massachusetts, 8.7 in New Hampshire, 8.4 in Vermont, 7.6 in Michigan and Maine, 5.9 in Illinois and Florida (average distance 990 miles). Women traveled long distances to get abortions in New York.

To this point in this post, I have not said anything about what should happen, only what science has told us has happened and is happening. So I’m not doing anything described by His Excellency’s next sentence, because I have not at this point made a moral argument.
Some who try to navigate this labyrinth of moral analysis simply rationalize their way to a desired conclusion, for example, by saying that voting for a pro-choice candidate is justified by their support for other “social justice” causes.
My argument, which is not a moral argument, is that overturning Roe v. Wade will have a quantitative benefit in reducing abortion rates that is likely to be quite small if at all measurable, because illegal abortions will be unreported.

Reaching a similar conclusion, Joyce et al., cited above, also estimated using statistical models that if the 31 states expected to prohibit abortion did so if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the abortion rate would fall by 14.9% annually. If only 17 states did the ban, abortion rate would fall by 6.0% annually. Joyce et al. did not include Cytotec, nor address the lower costs of travel since the early 1970s, nor other new drugs such as “the morning after pill” (referred to as emergency contraception), which may not be outlawed by overturning Roe v. Wade. Connecticut v. Griswold and Eisenstadt v. Baird are still there.

If you want to argue with what I’ve said thus far, which is solely a descriptive argument, not a moral argument, please provide some data to counter anything I have said thus far. I welcome any facts you present. Someone may not like the information I’ve presented, but that doesn’t make it untrue.

 

[Exiled_Child]

It’s a good question, but please forgive me for not reading the eighty-five pages preceding this answer. In my view, the Democrats are only slightly more off key than the Republican party. Even if the Republicans are slightly less murderous, 99% of what they do is still entirely Satanic. I know someone’s going to ask me for examples, and they would be easy enough to provide, but please, just look at American foreign policy. We live in the belly of the beast; there’s no escape for us. Discussions like this always remind me of Thomas Merton’s eternally inspirational words, " Society…. was regarded by them as a shipwreck from which each single individual man had to swim for his life." So that’s us; swim or sink.

 

[estesbob]

Thank you for that well-written column from Bishop Paprocki.
*
I totally agree. It’s not simple.

But before making any moral judgments, let’s actually analyze the situation given the factual basis as I’ve laid it out. I welcome any data anyone else has found.

Fact 1: Taussig (1931) estimated that annually, there were 700,000 abortions per year. In the abstract of his piece, he says, “All efforts to control the incidence of criminal abortion by legislation have resulted in failure.” He wrote when abortion was illegal everywhere. Some of those were what we would now call a “spontaneous abortion,” but he mostly focuses on “criminal abortion.” He also published a book in 1910 The Prevention and Treatment of Abortion which says (on page 5) that “Furthermore, I should be inclined to add as a reason for the frequency of abortions at this time the fact, that usually it is not until the second period has been passed, that women feel so sure of being pregnant as to be willing to submit to instrumental interference. The reason seems especially weighty when we consider the fact that such criminal interference is probably the direct cause of almost half of all abortions.”
This suggests that abortion rates in the 1930s were between 50% and >100% of today’s.

Fact 2: Cytotec is a stomach ulcer drug that includes a black-box warning that it’s an abortifacient. So it’s being sold throughout the world, including in Texas flea markets as a way to do a “DIY abortion.” In 2010, Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote:
“Could the decades-long global impasse over abortion worldwide be overcome — by little white pills costing less than $1 each? That seems possible, for these pills are beginning to revolutionize abortion around the world, especially in poor countries.”

Fact 3: If Roe v. Wade is overturned, the legal status of abortion becomes a state matter. In many states abortion will remain legal, and it doesn’t take many to see a U.S. where the majority of abortions remain legal. CA+NY+IL+MA+MD+OR+WA and statistically speaking, you’re there.

Fact 4: Between 1971-1972, New York state made abortion legal. As reported in Joyce et al. (2012), NY had an abortion rate (per 1,000 women aged 15-44) of 29.4. Abortion remained illegal in neighboring states, but the rate of abortions performed in New York state on their residents increased: 15.2 in New Jersey, 10.3 in Connecticut and Massachusetts, 8.7 in New Hampshire, 8.4 in Vermont, 7.6 in Michigan and Maine, 5.9 in Illinois and Florida (average distance 990 miles). Women traveled long distances to get abortions in New York.

To this point in this post, I have not said anything about what should happen, only what science has told us has happened and is happening. So I’m not doing anything described by His Excellency’s next sentence, because I have not at this point made a moral argument.
Some who try to navigate this labyrinth of moral analysis simply rationalize their way to a desired conclusion, for example, by saying that voting for a pro-choice candidate is justified by their support for other “social justice” causes.
My argument, which is not a moral argument, is that overturning Roe v. Wade will have a quantitative benefit in reducing abortion rates that is likely to be quite small if at all measurable, because illegal abortions will be unreported.

Reaching a similar conclusion, Joyce et al., cited above, also estimated using statistical models that if the 31 states expected to prohibit abortion did so if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the abortion rate would fall by 14.9% annually. If only 17 states did the ban, abortion rate would fall by 6.0% annually. Joyce et al. did not include Cytotec, nor address the lower costs of travel since the early 1970s, nor other new drugs such as “the morning after pill” (referred to as emergency contraception), which may not be outlawed by overturning Roe v. Wade. Connecticut v. Griswold and Eisenstadt v. Baird are still there.

If you want to argue with what I’ve said thus far, which is solely a descriptive argument, not a moral argument, please provide some data to counter anything I have said thus far. I welcome any facts you present. Someone may not like the information I’ve presented, but that doesn’t make it untrue.

Again you offer nothing whatsoever to back up your personal opinion that a Catholic can vote for a pro-abortion candidate. You have ignored cites from 3 popes, 2 encyclicals, 6 bishops and a Cardinal, instead wanting to focus on abortion rates in the 1030s and 1970s-none of which is relevant to this discussion.

For those who wonder what Archbishop Chaput is talking about when he refers to the mental gymnastics pro-abortion Catholics go though to justify supporting abortion your post is a perfect example.

 

[Sy_Noe]

That’s not what he said. That is intentionally distorting his words and intention.

Well the Holy Father was already quoted by another poster and his quoted words remain exactly the same. They’re exactly what he said.

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time."

“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow."

No one is saying he said Catholics can ignore the abortion issue. Of course he did not say that. But he did clearly ask for a new tone and direction in focus. Saying in no uncertain terms for you not to talk about it and a couple of other issues all the time. And more importantly not to insist only on those issues. That there are other issues to include in the new balance he says Catholics have to find. As an outsider looking in I’m still waiting to see Catholics at least on this forum finding the new balance the Holy Father so eloquently spoke of in this interview. But I’m not going to keep waiting forever so will now leave the thread and let you continue your conversation without me.

americamagazine.org/pope-interview

 

[Path_Finder]

Some stats given too may be “pre-pill”, that has to be remembered as well.

 

[estesbob]

Well the Holy Father was already quoted by another poster and his quoted words remain exactly the same. They’re exactly what he said.

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time."

“The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently. Proclamation in a missionary style focuses on the essentials, on the necessary things: this is also what fascinates and attracts more, what makes the heart burn, as it did for the disciples at Emmaus. We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel. The proposal of the Gospel must be more simple, profound, radiant. It is from this proposition that the moral consequences then flow."

No one is saying he said Catholics can ignore the abortion issue. Of course he did not say that. But he did clearly ask for a new tone and direction in focus. Saying in no uncertain terms for you not to talk about it and a couple of other issues all the time. And more importantly not to insist only on those issues. That there are other issues to include in the new balance he says Catholics have to find. As an outsider looking in I’m still waiting to see Catholics at least on this forum finding the new balance the Holy Father so eloquently spoke of in this interview. But I’m not going to keep waiting forever so will now leave the thread and let you continue your conversation without me.

americamagazine.org/pope-interview

Nothing he said contradicts the Church teaching that one can not vote for a pro-abortion candidate. in fact he says “**The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church,” **

We are seeing mental gymnastics at their best, But them people have been justifying supporting evil since Cain killed Abel

 

[estesbob]

Some stats given too may be “pre-pill”, that has to be remembered as well.

They don’t matter anyway. The idea that we can support evil if we feel evil is going to prevail in specious.

 

[Ridgerunner]

But before making any moral judgments, let’s actually analyze the situation given the factual basis as I’ve laid it out. I welcome any data anyone else has found.

Fact 4: Between 1971-1972, New York state made abortion legal. As reported in Joyce et al. (2012), NY had an abortion rate (per 1,000 women aged 15-44) of 29.4. Abortion remained illegal in neighboring states, but the rate of abortions performed in New York state on their residents increased: 15.2 in New Jersey, 10.3 in Connecticut and Massachusetts, 8.7 in New Hampshire, 8.4 in Vermont, 7.6 in Michigan and Maine, 5.9 in Illinois and Florida (average distance 990 miles). Women traveled long distances to get abortions in New York.

To this point in this post, I have not said anything about what should happen, only what science has told us has happened and is happening. So I’m not doing anything described by His Excellency’s next sentence, because I have not at this point made a moral argument.
Some who try to navigate this labyrinth of moral analysis simply rationalize their way to a desired conclusion, for example, by saying that voting for a pro-choice candidate is justified by their support for other “social justice” causes.
My argument, which is not a moral argument, is that overturning Roe v. Wade will have a quantitative benefit in reducing abortion rates that is likely to be quite small if at all measurable, because illegal abortions will be unreported.

Reaching a similar conclusion, Joyce et al., cited above, also estimated using statistical models that if the 31 states expected to prohibit abortion did so if Roe v. Wade is overturned, the abortion rate would fall by 14.9% annually. If only 17 states did the ban, abortion rate would fall by 6.0% annually. Joyce et al. did not include Cytotec, nor address the lower costs of travel since the early 1970s, nor other new drugs such as “the morning after pill” (referred to as emergency contraception), which may not be outlawed by overturning Roe v. Wade. Connecticut v. Griswold and Eisenstadt v. Baird are still there.

If you want to argue with what I’ve said thus far, which is solely a descriptive argument, not a moral argument, please provide some data to counter anything I have said thus far. I welcome any facts you present. Someone may not like the information I’ve presented, but that doesn’t make it untrue.

Well, here’s one purporting to show that abortions went up a great deal after Roe vs. Wade. grtl.org/docs/roevwade.pdf. Just looking for a couple of minutes demonstrates that there are widely competing estimates of the change in the number of abortions after 1973.

So it’s really a debate, not a certitude. Regardless, I don’t know how anybody truly knows how many abortions took place before or after Roe, particularly before, since there was no real accounting of it then.

But I’m not sure that’s dispositive of the question whether Catholic can, or cannot, morally support an overtly abortion-promoting political party. Nor is it dispositive of adverse effects other than the death of the unborn children, abortion on demand has. It may be noted that the U.S. is one of the most permissive, if not the most permissive country when it comes to abortion. Are all of them completely wrong in limiting it? Do we know for sure why they do?

I have read that a significant number of abortions are procured by persons other than the mother; parents, boyfriends, etc. Is it possible that limitations might actually encourage some women to have their babies if they could point to barriers to it as their reasons for not doing it? Even Guttmacher agrees that the abortion rate is higher among women who have felt pressure from others to abort. guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/3322401.html

If that’s true, then “abortion on demand” in itself likely encourages abortions because the lack of a “why not” can be forcefully presented to the woman by others. Inconvenience alone might provide at least some women with the “why not”.

I have read that certain undesirable societal features have accompanied the legalization of abortion; among them being increased illegitimacy, fewer men willing to marry, and other things. Maybe there’s no “cause/effect” relationship, but the parallels are strikingly congruent. And when one thinks about it, how many men would marry a woman who reserved the personal right to kill his son or daughter? No doubt many do, but I certainly wouldn’t.

And we also need to think whether a society SHOULD promote abortion as a mere “choice” rather than something rather more serious that ought to be at least limited in some manner. Yes, it’s the old “slippery slope” argument. When human life is held at nothing in one way, is there really a good reason to disbelieve that it can lead to disregarding it in other ways?

But no matter what, the Church does not view abortion in the way the Democrat party does, and for Catholics supporting it is just as sinful as supporting the promotion of any other evil. Should Catholics also support candidates who promote the prostitution business just because those who go to prostitutes would do it anyway, legal or not? Some politicians do promote that “business”, obviously, or it wouldn’t be legal in Nevada. And some people support those politicians.

I think the answer to the question is clearly “no”. We should not support the evil of abortion or those who promote it, whether abortions have increased or decreased or stayed the same after Roe.

Sorry for shortening your post, but I had no choice.

 

[pnewton]

I guess if you don’t understand Church instruction, you don’t have the right to be sermonizing to others about what they should or should NOT be following.

The Holy Father says this:

"Defend the unborn against abortion even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court or kill you. No child should be deprived of the right to be born, the right to be fed, the right to go to school."

That’s pretty simple and to the point, I will take Pope Francis’s statements, not someone who seems to use quotes to opportunistically talk those down who are defending the right to be born, the right to be fed, the right to school.

What do they say about taking statements out of context.

Sorry P. Newton, I will follow the Church and NOT be for Murder and not following verbal gymnastics.

I did not sermonize. Neither have I murdered. I also took no quote out of context. I still consider charity to be of great value in discussing politics.

P Newton: Just so there is no mistake, I hope you understand Pope Francis does see abortion as wrong.

Of course. I would think this is obvious to all. However, it is not the only wrong, nor does he derive from this fact the conclusion that a Catholic can not vote for a Democrat.