In 2004, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, then head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, gave single-issue thinking some wriggle room when it comes to the topic of abortion—a position officially forbidden by the Roman Catholic Church. In a memo to the Cardinal of Washington, D.C., however, Ratzinger qualified the church’s position to permit faithful Catholics the opportunity to vote for a pro-abortion candidate. In the memo, he reasoned that one may vote for a candidate who supports abortion rights provided (1) abortion is not the primary reason for one’s vote, and (2) if the candidate has other positions that outweigh the abortion issue.
If you find yourself scratching your head, you’re probably not alone. It’s hard for me to imagine a proportionate reason to justify the favoring of taking of innocent, human life. What outweighs the protection of life? Is there something more valuable than defending the pinnacle of God’s creation—human life?
The Vatican’s (okay, let’s just call it what it is) politically-motivated memo designed to assuage a certain portion of its practitioners is in essence saying single-issue voting is neither necessary nor wise. Otherwise, why else would the magisterium give its approval for people to vote for pro-abortion candidates? The problem, though, comes when we start to consider other single-issue policies, other issues that every rational person would agree should disqualify a person from public office. For instance, a candidate who advocated the wide-spread use of blackmail as a form of government efficiency would be deemed incompetent, regardless of his or her political platform. Or a person who endorsed racial or gender discrimination would be disqualified regardless of other views. Or a candidate who suggested pedophilia should not be a crime—that stance alone would end that person’s political career. The list could go on and on. The idea is simply to point out that every single person has at least a single issue in mind that would, to that person, disqualify a candidate from political leadership.
It’s the same with work. Suppose you were interviewing potential candidates for a certain job, let’s say baking in a bakery in your downtown store, and the interviewee informed you he will not work before 8 am. However, you need him at the store well before that hour to prepare the breads, pastries, cupcakes, croissants, doughnuts, and pies. Or what if a potential bank teller informed you she did not like people and did not want to provide cheerful service. That single issue would be enough for you not to hire that person.
And politics is no different. Every voter must decide what those issues are; one must choose which issues are deal-breakers. Many evangelicals believe there is no other issue where the stakes are so high or the moral contrast is so striking. I cannot fathom a more telling example of lapse in moral judgment than to the politician who endorses the “right” to kill an unborn child—or infanticide, if we were to stop using Orwellian language and were honest. The utter inability to see evil and oppose it at all costs should disqualify someone from public office as much as any one candidate who would endorse racism, bigotry, discrimination, fraud, bribery, or blackmail. The irony, however, is that the former is treated as a form of societal progression; expect that the killing of a child is far more heinous than any of the others listed.
The starting point for Christians on the issue of life must be the strong and consistent testimony in support of the divine gift of life from the pages of Scripture. Even the unborn child is dear and precious to the Lord as the psalmist testified: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well” (Ps. 139:13–14). Unborn babies are more than merely “masses of tissue” or “bags of protoplasm.” They are specific acts of creation that, by the eighth week, have a beating heart, brain waves, sensitivity to pain, thumbs to suck, and genetic humanity. The humanness of unborn babies are evident as, for example, when John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb at the sound of Mary’s voice (Luke 1:41). Are we seriously to deny the personhood of John the Baptist in the womb? Or any unborn child for that matter?
Another telling passage that strips away any potential confusion is found in Exodus 21:22–25. “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” While commentators differ regarding whether this passage refers only to a miscarriage or to a live, but premature, birth (because the Hebrew verb yasa, “to come out,” is always used in the Bible to refer to live births), the thrust of the message is clear: an unborn child is a nephesh, a soul, a living human being nurtured in the womb. Premature births resulting in death carry a death penalty for either the mother or the child, a hefty sentence that would not be imposed if the unborn child were not a living being.
Taking the life of a child in the womb, according to the testimony of Scripture, is a serious offense that, under the Old Testament Laws of Moses, carried grave consequences. Life is deemed sacred because of the Creator, and humanity is called to honor and protect it as such. Yet, ironically, our society does not place this same intrinsic value on life as does Scripture. In fact, animals carry more rights and protection than the unborn. Just in my home state, current as of the time of writing this, Virginia Statutes § 3.2-6500–6590 and § 18.2-361 prohibit cruelty to animals. One has to wonder why it could be a felony to “beat, maim, mutilate, or kill any animal,” while at the same time it is permissible to “mutilate or kill” an unborn child with a beating heart in the name of “reproductive rights.” Could we at the very least not change the laws to reflect a fetus as being equal worth to that of an animal? Are not unborn children at least as valuable as your household pet?
All the politically-correct language in the world will not change the reality that abortion is infanticide and it is an abomination to take the very life created by God. The ancient Hebrews were to have nothing to do with killing the unborn; and neither should we. For this very reason, and on this particular issue, I am a convinced single-issue voter. I believe life trumps all other issues, and any candidate who refuses to protect the most defenseless of all God’s creation will not have my support. I think it is safe to say that no Christian would knowingly vote for a candidate whose platform is the wide-spread persecution of Christ-followers, so I find it curious when I discover professing believers who have no qualms about voting for a candidate whose platform is the wide-spread persecution of the unborn. (That said, one could argue that, in rare circumstances, given a choice between two pro-choice candidates, the lesser of two evils should be supported).
The only way to reverse this trend is to change the hearts of the American people. Merely passing laws will not prevent abortions from taking place, only a heart longing to obey the Lord will. The church and every professing Christians must cultivate a culture of life from the youngest child to the oldest adult. Abortion remains a great stain on this nation, just as genocide of the Jews is a blotch on Germany’s past. The only way to combat evil is to recognize it, confront, and defeat it entirely. We start that process by voting for good people who will do the right thing, who will move to protect all human life.
Sometimes people ask, “How would Jesus vote?” While that question might not always have a simple answer, I think it’s say to say that Jesus would not vote in violation of his own divine laws and would surely cast a vote for life. Let’s emulate Jesus, and do the same.
