Another lesson from the past week

Can a devout, pro-life Catholic ever in good conscience vote for a pro-choice candidate?

This week's Senate election in Massachusetts offers an interesting case in point.

Though Massachusetts has the second largest Catholic population by percentage, a serious pro-life politician never reaches the ballot. The Democratic candidate for Senate, Martha Coakley, stuck to a staunchly pro-choice platform including opposition to parental notification when minors seek abortions and to the right of individuals to protest outside abortion mills. The Republican candidate, Scott Brown, is also pro-choice but accepts the need for limits and regulations on abortions including a ban on partial birth abortions and conscience protections for health care professionals. Joe Kennedy, the Independent candidate, does not articulate his views on abortion on his website. However, given his permissive views on same sex marriage and other cultural issues, one may assume that he is solidly pro-choice.

Does this sad state of affairs mean that the pro-life voter has no choice in conscience except to boycott the election or write in a candidate? By no means. In my opinion, because Martha Coakley's views on abortion are so extreme, Scott Brown's position - though deeply flawed - ensures that important measures such as conscience protections for medical professionals and the ban on public funding for abortions would stay in place. So important are these issues in my opinion that even if the third party candidate were pro-life, a vote for Scott Brown could still be morally justified. The possibility of the third party candidate actually winning would be too small to entrust him with our vote. And it could result in the more extreme candidate being elected. Therefore, keeping in place the important restrictions on abortion achieved to this point makes a vote for Scott Brown a good one in conscience despite his pro-choice views.

It should be noted, however, that this is a good moral choice because the only other viable option was a candidate with such extreme views. Were her views more moderate or if there had been a viable pro-life candidate, the moral reasoning would be quite different.

Nothing convinced me more of our need to oppose Martha Coakley's candidacy than an interview she gave prior to the election on her opposition to conscience protections for medical professionals. Pushed on the issue by the reporter, she finally conceded that individual consciences should be respected. However she quickly added that devote Catholics then should not work in emergency rooms. This raised the specter of religious litmus tests for health care workers and emergency rooms staffed by Doctor Mengele's.

I suspect that, like the issue of conscience protections, none of her other extreme views, spoon-fed to her by Planned Parenthood and Emily's List, would stand up to logical scrutiny or be palatable to the people of the Commonwealth. Yet she would be willing to impose them on the health care community, and by extension, to their patients.

If those of us who value life had boycotted the election, she may have won and carried her radical, anti-life agenda to the Senate floor. For all his flaws, Scott Brown was the only choice against even further erosion of the right to life.