Did I Follow My Conscience?

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Suppose I am voting for governor. Candidate A is pro-choice but is for medical insurance for everyone, adequate workmen’s compensation, unemployment compensation, and overtime for workers. Candidate B believes that life begins at conception. However, he has voted to cut unemployment compensation and to cut compensation for injured workers. He has also voted to reduce overtime for workers. I vote for Candidate B because I heard I was going to commit a mortal sin if I voted for Candidate A. However, when I am watching the election returns, I am thinking of all of the women who probably chose to have an abortion because they didn’t have any medical insurance. A part of me (that I can’t control) is hoping that Candidate A will win. My question is, did I really vote my conscience?
 
I don’t know if you voted your conscience, but you perfectly illustrated why I hate election years. I hate having to choose the lesser of two evils, year in and year out.
 
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Listener:
Candidate B believes that life begins at conception, he has voted to cut unemployment compensation and to cut compensation for injured workers. He has also voted to reduce overtime for workers.
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Sounds like a perfect candidate. What’s not to like?
 
You did the right thing because abortion is a grave sin and non-negotiable for Catholics. Healthcare, unemployment, etc. are up to the individual to decide upon, as to whether you believe the government, i.e the taxpayers, should be responsible for everyone’s healthcare, etc. and to what extent. These are areas that you can believe one way or the other and still be a good Catholic. However, you cannot support a candidate that supports abortion becase it involves the legalized murder of the most defenseless, innocent human life. Therefore, it is not equal to issues such as healthcare insurance, unemployment, etc. By the way, lack of healthcare is not an excuse for having an abortion. Our Blessed Mother did not have access to healthcare, and thankfully she would never have considered aborting Our Lord. God Bless you for voting your conscience.
 
I like Fr. Pavone’s article in a recent Family Foundations.

If a candidate is for terrorism would you even care what his positions on the other issues are?

Under the Mercy,

Matthew
 
Boy…that’s a tough one when you live in the real world. I would say the vote you made is the one in accordance with Catholic teachings. As has been debated in the Politics forum before, Cardinal Ratzinger did offer a statement allowing Catholics who vote for pro-choice candidate as long as they were voting based on the candidate’s stand on equally weighty issues He called it “proportionate reasons.” It is extremely arguable what weighty issues are. Unless you’ve been denied healthcare benefits or workerman’s comp, you probably wouldn’t consider it as important as someone who has been denied those things.

I have a copy of the whole memorandum by Ratzinger, written for the USCCB, if you would like to read it. Just PM me.

Don’t beat yourself up over your vote. What’s done is done and you can’t change your vote or vote again (except in Chicago 😉 ).
 
Lets see: A baby is aborted because candidate A gets into office. Won’t need medical insurance. The baby is dead

Won’t need worker’s comp. The baby will never grow up and have a job.

Won’t need unemployment insurance. The baby will never grow up and have a job.

Won’t need overtiime compensation. The baby will never grow up and have a job.

Won’t need welfare. The baby will never grow up and not have a job.

Won’t need education. The baby will never grow up and go to school.

Won’t need (insert your favorite social program> The baby will never grow up and (insert…).

I havn’t seen candidate B propose that those programs be eliminated; but often restructured. I haven’t talked to too many Republicans who think we don’t need some sort of health insurance reform. They just think that you, and I, and our doctor, should have more say in our health care than the government. And they think that the word “responsibility” needs to be put back in the dictionary. Part of the rising health care costs are the “we’ll pay for everything” approach. We don’t need to run to the doctor with every runny nose…

A Democrat and a Republican were walking down the street together, when they came upon a homeless person. The Republican stopped, and spoke to him. When the Republican found out that he was homeless because he had no job, the Republican gave him a business card, told him to come in tomorrow and he would hire him, then reached in his pocket and gave him $20.

The next week the two were walking down the street together, and the Democrat told the Republican how impressed he had been with the previous incident. About that time, they came across another homeless person. The Democrat stopped and talked with him, and finding that he was homeless because he lost his job, the Democrat gave him directions to the welfare office; then reached in the Republican’s pocket, took $20, kept $15 for administrative costs, and gave the guy $5.

And although I have no statistics, I have a sneaking suspicion that there are precious few abortions because the mother has no health insurance. It is more likely that she has no desire to have the child, or feels trapped, because the father has no desire to have a child…
 
I will vote for candidate A because its the right thing to do.

And, if some of my fellow Catholics try to admonish me, I will assault them.

Thats all.

As they say, “Its non-negotiable”
 
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Listener:
Suppose I am voting for governor. Candidate A is pro-choice but is for medical insurance for everyone, adequate workmen’s compensation, unemployment compensation, and overtime for workers. Candidate B believes that life begins at conception. However, he has voted to cut unemployment compensation and to cut compensation for injured workers. He has also voted to reduce overtime for workers. I vote for Candidate B because I heard I was going to commit a mortal sin if I voted for Candidate A. However, when I am watching the election returns, I am thinking of all of the women who probably chose to have an abortion because they didn’t have any medical insurance. A part of me (that I can’t control) is hoping that Candidate A will win. My question is, did I really vote my conscience?
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You did the right thing. All those other issues are open to discussion, but one: abortion.

A woman doesn’t have an abortion because she doesn’t have health insurance. She has an abortion because she doesn’t want to change anything in her life, be it her life style, be it her new convertible. There are so many pregnancy crisis centers which would take care of the child during and after pregnancy, if she wanted. No one can come up with a justification for killing an innocent.

But we may disagree on all the others without harming our Faith. You may favor state health care, I don’t and the Church doesn’t either. You may favor overtime, I do but I’d rather leave that to the contract between the parties. You may favor unemployment compensation, but I favor that one saves for rainy days. You may favor injury compensation, I do too, but it cannot be a lotery ticket. Bottom line: I favor personal responsibility. The culture of colective responsibility is nice, but the state must remain out of it. It’s best left to citizens like you and me donating to Catholic charities and hospitals.

The modern state wishes to replace the Church, starting with birth certificates and marriages, to charity. The modern state wishes to smother the Church by making it irrelevant first and then plainly persecuting its members and outlwaing it. If this sounds familiar, it’s because that’s what the DNC has been doing for the last few decades. No, the GOP is not the answer, the Constitution Party is, but the DNC is surely the malady.
 
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Augustine:
A woman doesn’t have an abortion because she doesn’t have health insurance. She has an abortion because she doesn’t want to change anything in her life, be it her life style, be it her new convertible. There are so many pregnancy crisis centers which would take care of the child during and after pregnancy, if she wanted. No one can come up with a justification for killing an innocent.
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What makes you say this? How do you or anyone else know the ultimate motivation behind a womans choice? You better by God make sure you search your conscious when you make universal quantifier statments like this, because that kind of attitude will surely bound your soul.

The Church NEVER has taught that abortion or any other issue is “non-negotiable” or “non-debatable”. I mean, hell, the Church is open to addressing every issue that mankind could possibly dream up.

It seems that there are an abundance of people in the Church who want to apply fundamentalist principles to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Canon Law. Its like a whole race of pseudo-Popes.

Well, its actually just outright heresey. Ratzinger and Burke both made public statements that are contrary to the “abortion is the trump issue” faction of the Church.

Make no mistake about it, I am against abortion and thats for damn sure, but I will NOT pretend to know that there cannot nor will not EVER be a situation or time that such a procedure may be necessary. If I did I would only be lying to myself to support my existing presuppositions. In effect, I would be just like the Protestants and their refusal to accept that they can’t know everything from the Bible alone or that salvation is not by faith alone.

Pax Christi
 
What makes you say this? How do you or anyone else know the ultimate motivation behind a womans choice?

It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, it’s selfish. In now way can murder be permissible, whether of an adult or of an unborn child.

The Church NEVER has taught that abortion or any other issue is “non-negotiable” or “non-debatable”.
Yes, she has. See the CCC, #2271 at ccc.scborromeo.org.master.com/texis/master/redir/?u=http%3A//www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2271.htm.
I mean, hell, the Church is open to addressing every issue that mankind could possibly dream up.
Yes, she is and, with regards to abortion, she has already addressed it.
It seems that there are an abundance of people in the Church who want to apply fundamentalist principles to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and Canon Law. Its like a whole race of pseudo-Popes.
Indeed. Ain’t it so?

Well, its actually just outright heresey. Ratzinger and Burke both made public statements that are contrary to the “abortion is the trump issue” faction of the Church.
Then read their statements over. They make it clear that there’s a hyerarchy of things to consider and that abortion is at the top. Being the positions on abortion equal, one can weigh the rest, not the other way around.
Make no mistake about it, I am against abortion and thats for damn sure, but I will NOT pretend to know that there cannot nor will not EVER be a situation or time that such a procedure may be necessary. If I did I would only be lying to myself to support my existing presuppositions.
You may think of your beliefs or those of the Church as presupositions. Well, they can’t be both at the same time. Either you don’t believe in anything and only have opinions or you have beliefs which are rooted in God’s revelation to His Church.
In effect, I would be just like the Protestants and their refusal to accept that they can’t know everything from the Bible alone or that salvation is not by faith alone.
And what do apples have to do with oranges? The Church bears the Truth as revealed by the Holy Spirit. You may look back at changes in how the Church regarded form and customs as changes in doctrine. She’s never changed a doctrine, never a mortal sin became even a venial sin, thus never will murder become acceptable.
 
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Kecharitomene:
I will vote for candidate A because its the right thing to do.

And, if some of my fellow Catholics try to admonish me, I will assault them.

Thats all.

As they say, “Its non-negotiable”
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Now I see where you’re coming from… Your reply to my post below makes total sense now.

I suppose you know the only apostle who suggested putting social issues above everything else, right? I hope that this gives you pause.

God bless.
 
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Augustine:
Now I see where you’re coming from… Your reply to my post below makes total sense now.

I suppose you know the only apostle who suggested putting social issues above everything else, right? I hope that this gives you pause.

God bless.
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Jesus Christ Himself placed social issues above everything else and taught all of His followers to do the same. I know you are trying to insite some Darbyite Dispensationalist influenced criticism, but think about it. When you are crucified such that the whole world might have eternal life, is surely placing a significance on the issue of salvation, which should surely be the concern of members in the society. Christ also taught, healed, comforted, and fed His followers. All of these things to benefit the society. Will you continue to insist that this is not holding social issues as a high priority? How about in the Acts of the Apostles? Acts 2:44-45
44. All who believed were together and had all things in common;
45. they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.

Golly, that sure sounds like social issues played a significant role in the early Church. I guess thats why for 20 centuries the Church has championed the cause of the poor and down trodden. Striving for social justice and the abolishment of tyrants.
 
This is why women have abortions:

Social Reasons (given as primary reason)
**21% **Feels unready for responsibility
21% Feels she can’t afford baby
16% Concern for how baby would change her life
**12% **Relationship problem
**11% **Feels she isn’t mature enough
**8% **Has all the children she wants
4-5% Other reasons
**TOTAL:**93%
"Hard Cases" (given as primary reason)
**3% **Mother’s Health
**3% **Baby may have health problem
*1% *Rape or Incest
**TOTAL: **7%
Most pro-life politicians make an exception for the hard cases, so you can’t use them to justify voting for a pro-abortion candidate.
 
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