If you truly believe that there is little difference between McCain and Obama’s respective records on “Culture of Life” issues, then I am afraid there is very little left to say.

Does not get enough Discussion? THis seems to be brought up a good bit on here. IN fact one might ask what TOm Delay has to do with voting for either Obama or Mccain.

I’m not sure the efficacy of a politician’s particular powers to affect a particular matter is central to our disagreements, if that is what you are saying. For that matter, after our latest round of clarifications at my place I’m not sure we disagree on principles, though it is virtually certain that we disagree on our understanding of the facts feeding those principles.

However, if we stick to general principles and ignore particular facts for the sake of discussion, I think you may (though I’m not sure) still be jumping the gun by going directly to looking for a proportionate reason. That is to say, it isn’t clear to me that the decision has passed muster with the other requirements of the PDE just yet. That is because, while it is certainly true that one can support the hypothetical-Obama without supporting his pro-abortion policies, it may be very, very difficult to do so without, shall we say, ‘toning down the pro-life rhetoric’ as a means of creating solidarity with pro-choice collaborators.

It would be one thing to support hypothetical-Obama while getting louder and more insistent in one’s support of making abortion illegal. But if one is ‘toning down’ one’s insistence that abortion be made illegal as a means to the end of making collaboration with pro-choicers work better, then one has not passed the PDE, because of the duty to conscientiously object previously discussed and referenced. And we haven’t even gotten to the point where evaluating ‘proportionate reason’ is pertinent: the conditions required for the PDE have to apply in order for proportionate reason to matter, and if we are choosing or in any way intending an evil means then the conditions required for the PDE to apply are not met.

MZ Forrest made a comment on my blog which inspired my post “How Material Cooperation Becomes Formal Coopertion, Book VII” (I’m reluctant to link because the comboxes here are squirrelly about including links). In that post I approach the same point from the standpoint of a legislator and a ‘three exceptions’ law. Because that post rains on the parade of some of your political enemies, you might find it more amenable in terms of explaining the principles by example, though who knows.

If this were understood by everybody, abortion would end tomorrow. I would expect Catholics to know it, understand it and live it. Then we wouldn’t hear “proportional” arguments like comparing abortion to waterboarding or war or social injustice. It would not even come close.

One of the reasons I like reading Vox-Nova is that it’s like reading C.S. Lewis’s “Screwtape Letters” in real time. The sad part is it’s Catholics playing the part of Uncle Screwtape.

Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like asking questions like how much power the politician has to affect abortion, the abillity to bring about the policy in question, and the effectiveness of the policy (if enacted) in achieving its ends– and forming judgments based on the answers to these questions goes to the heart of our disagreement.

A “strong” pro-life record??? I’ve covered that. On top of that, he’s practically allergic to discussing abortion, so much so that conservative Ohio voters had to give a standing ovation to send him a clue about its importance. “Light years ahead”? More like a few meters.

Well, no I am not, but I don’t completly follow your logic either. Politicians take positions to get elected. So many Catholic Democrats became “pro-choice” for reasons of political expediency (Ted Kennedy, Dennis Kucinich, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson etc). Likewise, I’m convinced many “pro-life” polictians actually don’t give a hoot about abortion. So if we arrive at a situation whereby nearly all elected repesentatives are pro-choice, it is because they reflect the will of the voters, and not because Catholics are giving them a pass. It all comes back to leading by example, and changing the culture.

I suspect that there are two things that go on: On the one hand, politicians with few principles (at least on a given issue) change their positions in order to please the voters whom they think are otherwise most likely to vote for them. On the other, if people feel strongly about a given issue, it enables others who feel strongly about the same issue to become successful politicians based upon their votes. (For instance, I assume that Obama probably does believe in progressive principles, rather than simply having adopted them in order to win votes.)

What I am saying is that, regardless of which of those above tendencies is operative most frequently, if we followed your advice in concluding that presidential candidates have very little ability to change abortion incidence by denouncing abortion (and by supporting anti-abortion legislation) and instead always voted for the most progressive candidate available with respect to economic issues, we would remove any incentive either for politicians to pretend to be pro-life (which if it results in pro-life actions is still effectively a good thing) or for those who are passionately pro-life to go into political life.

Why?

Because if we were always willing to vote for the most progressive candidate, whether he was pro-life or not, and there are a reasonable percentage of people who will only vote for progressive candidates if they are actively pro-choice, than pro-choice candidates only will thrive.

Now perhaps you are imagining that if all Catholics became passionately progressive (which it is my impression you think they ought, in order to achieve the common good) then there would be a large enough number of pro-life progressives that we might somehow outweigh the committed pro-choice progressive vote.

Even so, however, if all the newly-progressive Catholics were not willing to refuse to vote for a progressive because he was pro-choice, the pro-life progressives would invariably lose in the general elections.

I agree with you that we cannot be single issue voters in the sense of not even accepting the existence of proportionate reasons to vote for a pro-choice candidate. But if we put as little weight on the issue as you seem to suggest, there would soon be no successful politicians at all who were pro-life, and I think we could probably agree that that would be a bad thing.

Matt, I think what Obama said to Relevant magazine itself is a bit of a spin at the time he opposed the bill.

Obama opposed the bill because it would mandate that a previable fetus (who survives a botched abortion) is “entitled to the same kinds of protections that would be provided a child — a nine month child — that was delivered to term”; that it would
for that reason forbid abortions to take place (and jeopordize Roe v. Wade);
and that it would place “a BURDEN on the doctor … to keep alive even a previable child as long as possible, and give them medical attention as is necessary to try and keep that child alive.”

I just don’t know how any Christian can sit well with that.

Meanwhile, Obama clarified his remarks to Relevant magazine about the mental health exception, to NARAL’s satisfaction.

I don’t think you’ve yet grasped the argument. I am not arguing, in this particular set of comments and posts, that it is impossible to morally vote for Obama (though that may well be the case in fact). If you think that is what I am arguing, or that my argument contradicts Decker’s essay, then you haven’t understood my argument.

“Effectively, you as saying that we should strongly incent all politicians to ignore the Church’s will, which is that abortion should not be legal. Are you okay with that?”

Well, no I am not, but I don’t completly follow your logic either. Politicians take positions to get elected. So many Catholic Democrats became “pro-choice” for reasons of political expediency (Ted Kennedy, Dennis Kucinich, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson etc). Likewise, I’m convinced many “pro-life” polictians actually don’t give a hoot about abortion. So if we arrive at a situation whereby nearly all elected repesentatives are pro-choice, it is because they reflect the will of the voters, and not because Catholics are giving them a pass. It all comes back to leading by example, and changing the culture.

I think we all agree (roughly anyway) where we want to end up. We differ on how to get there.

Feddie– actually, the ball is in yoru court. As a manifest McCain suporter, you need to justify why you are supporting a candidate who supports one significant intrinsically evil act (ECSR), and possibly others (his positions on torture and on bombing areas with non-combatants are not fully clear, but I fear the worst). As for me, I have not actually endorsed Obama (yet). I think he’s better than McCain, sure, but that’s something different.

(if this appears more garbled than usual or if I produce more typos than usual, it is because I haev just returned from the eye doctor and my pupils are seriously dilated!!)