Faithful Democrats
the economic and social welfare policies the GOP advocates are fundamentally at odds with the kind of measures we would have in place if we were actually serious about ending abortion and caring for the extra children who would be born in its absence.
28 “What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
29 “‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
30 “Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
31 “Which of the two did what his father wanted?”
“The first,” they answered.
Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.
I spent my first 5 or 6 elections (out of the 9 I’ve been old enough to vote in) evaluating candidates principally on their approach to abortion. I was persuaded by John Piper’s argument that even if a pro-life position does not automatically qualify someone for elective office “the endorsement of the right to kill unborn children disqualifies a person from any position of public office.” It certainly made my job of studying the candidates’ positions on the full range of policy issues much easier, since I typically could stop with abortion.
But such a single-issue approach is inadequate for three reasons.
First, what other moral failings might equally disqualify a leader from public office? Sacrificing the health (and lives) of children to let some companies skimp on safety inspections and environmental protections in order to give their stockholders slightly higher dividends? Eliminating regulations on lenders to make it easier for them to convince consumers to live beyond their means-in the process mortgaging our children’s future and making it harder to condemn Chinese crackdowns on religious freedom? Abandoning the poor and hungry to the care of already overstretched private charities because top-dollar campaign donors are hungry for a tax break? Stripping funding from state agencies that help the very special needs children that pro-lifers beg expectant parents not to abort? The list could go on and on.
Second, if I believed that the political choice was between a party that tolerated and encouraged what is difficult to see as anything other than the killing of unborn children and one that offered a believable plan for saving their lives, I would have a very hard time not backing the latter option. It’s fine to say that life begins at conception and abortion is evil (and I’d agree with that approach), but the Republican platform offers no credible way of actually saving unborn life. In fact, the economic and social welfare policies the GOP advocates are fundamentally at odds with the kind of measures we would have in place if we were actually serious about ending abortion and caring for the extra children who would be born in its absence.
Third, abortion was commonplace long before it was legalized, and it seems unlikely that a ban on abortion (with the current fiscal policies or especially with policies to the right of those) would be able to stop illegal abortion. Also, how exactly would we prosecute such a ban? Would underground abortion providers’ attempts to escape prosecution lead to shorter paper trails and dangerous gaps in patient care that might lead to two wrongful deaths instead of just one? Would our most fundamental freedoms be secure from a government whose power to detect and punish crime extended to the determination of whether a woman suffering a miscarriage should be comforted or indicted? The stories from Nicaragua, where an abortion ban has resulted in deaths from ectopic pregnancies doctors were scared to treat (lest they be accused of performing abortions instead), certainly give me pause.
It’s probably a good thing–for the sake of symbolism-to have a law on the books saying that abortion is prohibited, but how much political capital are we willing to trade (and how many unborn children are we willing to sacrifice) for the opportunity to pretend that because no one is *supposed* to be having abortions that abortion has been eliminated? Would we rather have a meaningless (and quite temporary) law banning abortion accompanied by a set of policies that result in more people who are determined to get an abortion regardless of the law and that contributes to a higher mortality rate among working- and middle-class children, or would we rather trade the absence of a paper-only abortion ban for a set of policies that reduce the number of abortions and save lives across the board?
I am increasingly convinced that an abortion ban will only work in the context of Democratic economic and social welfare policies. Ironically, the most reliable road to saving unborn life runs through the camp that is most outspoken in its defense of abortion rights. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” The one who did what the father asked–even after saying the opposite.
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