Voting Questions

[fakename]

1. Between two sufficiently large evils, is it better to decide not to act than to limit evil by “choosing the lesser evil” (is choosing the lesser evil good too?)?
2. If there are times when pro-abortion candidates can be elected, then why does the Church excommunicate anyone who would vote this way?

 

[Aelred_Minor]

1. Between two sufficiently large evils, is it better to decide not to act than to limit evil by “choosing the lesser evil” (is choosing the lesser evil good too?)?
2. If there are times when pro-abortion candidates can be elected, then why does the Church excommunicate anyone who would vote this way?

1. In general, we should vote the way we hope other people in the country will vote.
2. She doesn’t.

 

[Bearontherun]

Here is my opinion on the two questions…

1. If there is a choice between two evils, vote for the lesser one. Not voting just allows more chance for the greater evil to “win” in the voting.
2. I think it is because abortion is an extremely grave evil and if another voting option exists, we are expected to choose the “non-abortion” one.

 

[fakename]

1. In general, we should vote the way we hope other people in the country will vote.
2. She doesn’t.

She doesn’t? Truly?

1. I think it is because abortion is an extremely grave evil and if another voting option exists, we are expected to choose the “non-abortion” one.

But isn’t this a prudential issue because one needs to know something about history (whether or not there really is a non-abortion issue) to make such a moral decision. But the Church cannot comment on empirical-historical issues (like whether or not certain voting options exist in any one country). So how can it make a law about this issue?

 

[Inquiringperson]

1. In general, we should vote the way we hope other people in the country will vote.
2. She doesn’t.

The Church does excommunicate them. It’s just Latae Sententiae.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

The Church does excommunicate them. It’s just Latae Sententiae.

Source for this claim about a Latae Sententiae excommunication for voting for a pro-abortion politician?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very likely going to be a mortal sin to vote for a more pro-abortion politician over a less pro-abortion politician unless there is a commensurate reason for it, but an excommunication is something else entirely.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

The law on excommunication for abortion is:

Can. 1398 A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae excommunication.

The penalty is for procuring the abortion; not for advocating it. There is an argument that a legislator or other elected officer may be guilty of helping procure the abortion by providing public funding for it. However, it seems difficult to link a vote for the official to the procuring of a specific abortion. On the other hand so voting, as noted by others, may well be a mortal sin. I would suggest that the consequences of an unforgiven mortal sin are far greater than those of excommunication.

 

[Inquiringperson]

Source for this claim about a Latae Sententiae excommunication for voting for a pro-abortion politician?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s very likely going to be a mortal sin to vote for a more pro-abortion politician over a less pro-abortion politician unless there is a commensurate reason for it, but an excommunication is something else entirely.

Many times, people vote for a pro-abort politician because they agree with their views on abortion. If Catholics are okay with abortions, then they spout heresy and excommunicated.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Many times, people vote for a pro-abort politician because they agree with their views on abortion. If Catholics are okay with abortions, then they spout heresy and excommunicated.

As someone noted above, the only excommunication directly linked to abortion that I know about is about procurement of abortion. This would mean the person getting the abortion and anyone formally cooperating or perhaps just directly materially cooperating with the abortion process, like paying for the abortion.

Voting for a pro-abortion politician is neither formal cooperation nor direct material cooperation, but remote material cooperation, and thus it is not intrinsically evil, but to do it morally sevaral conditions must be met.

Namely, you must be cooperating with the evil despite the evil, not because of it, and the good hoped to be gained from the action bust outweigh the bad. Thus a Catholic could vote for a pro-abortion candidate (like any major-party presidential candidate in the last several presidential elections) if they were voting for them in spite of their support for abortion not because of it, and if the good they hoped would come about from that election would outweigh the evil of abortion. One easy example, when a moderately pro-abortion candidate like John McCain ran against an intensely pro-abortion candidate like Barack Obama, one could vote for McCain not because he was pro-abortion but because he was less pro-abortion than Obama).

In the case of a Catholic who voted for a pro-abortion politician because he was pro-abortion, as if this were a good thing, I think you definitely seem to have a case of sin there, very likely mortal sin because of the gravity of the subject. However, it would be hard to prove that this sin also involved formal heresy of the sort that incurs automatic excommunication. You would have to prove that in this particular case the idea in question (that abortion should be illegal, I suppose) has been infallibly defined by the Magisterium as having been divinely revealed, and that the post-baptismal denial or doubt of this truth is obstinate. Generally we ordinary laypeople are not in a position to make such determinations.

 

[fakename]

what’s the difference between voting for abortion and voting for abortion despite the abortion?

It seems to me that regardless of whether you like abortion, you are implicitly voting “for” abortion?

 

[Joe_Kelley]

what’s the difference between voting for abortion and voting for abortion despite the abortion?

It seems to me that regardless of whether you like abortion, you are implicitly voting “for” abortion?

One may vote for a pro-abortion politician if it will prevent a greater evil. However, I think Pope Benedict asked what evil is greater than abortion. I don’t think that was ever answered.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

what’s the difference between voting for abortion and voting for abortion despite the abortion?

It seems to me that regardless of whether you like abortion, you are implicitly voting “for” abortion?

Let’s take an extreme and simplified example, because this kind of example is simplest for demonstrating a point.

Let’s say there are two people running for Grand-Poobah of Atlantis. According to the Atlantian Constitution, the Grand-Poobah has two powers, the regulation of abortion and of the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Candidate Democritus Sinister is in favor of legalized abortion and restraint regarding the nuclear arsenal. Candidate Republicus Bellicosus is in favor of abolishing abortion, but also in favor of annihilating the entire world with nuclear weapons one week after his inauguration. A Catholic Atlantian could, in this case, vote for Democritus Sinister to prevent total world annihilation at the hands of Republicus Bellicosus. He wouldn’t at all be voting for Sinister because he is pro-abortion, but in spite of it, for the sake of preventing an even greater evil than abortion.

Note that this is not the ends justifying the means. If this same Atlantian citizen could only prevent the nuclear war by going back in time killing Bellicosus as a child, he would have to allow the nuclear war to happen, because one cannot do evil so that a greater good may come about. In the case of voting for a pro-abortion politician, the action isn’t intrinsically evil and the level of cooperation is sufficiently remote that it is possible for another factor to outweigh it.