Romney, Pro-Life, And Reality

By your news stories combined, I am...tempted to conclude that neither party is fielding a pro-life candidate for President this year.  And that makes for some interesting questions.

First, the stories.


Story A: Romney's sister explains her brother's likely actions during his prospective presidency.  Excerpts:

Mitt Romney’s sister promised that a ban on abortion was "never going to happen" under her brother’s presidency, a reassurance to women that is at odds with the nominee’s stated position on the issue.

"It’s not his focus," Jane Romney said at a talk here Wednesday. "He’s not going to be touching any of that..."


Few issues have bedeviled Romney as much as abortion has. When he first ran for the Senate from Massachusetts in 1994, he said he supported abortion rights, a position he reversed in 2006 as he prepared to make his first run for president.

Today, Romney says he favors overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion...

Story B: Romney explains for himself what his stance on abortion really is.

"My position has been clear throughout this campaign," Romney said. "I'm in favor of abortion being legal in the case of rape and incest, and the health and life of the mother..."

"Recognize this is the decision that will be made by the Supreme Court," he said. "The Democrats try and make this a political issue every four years, but this is a matter in the courts. It's been settled for some time in the courts..."

And so we reflect. President Obama is unquestionably not a pro-life candidate.  As shown above, Mitt Romney's position has been that Roe v. Wade is the settled law of the land.  He ran for governor in Massachusetts as a pro-choice candidate.

The teaching of Governor Romney's church supports such a position.  Excerpts:

In 1973, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released the following statement regarding abortion, which is still applicable today:

“The Church opposes abortion and counsels its members not to submit to or perform an abortion except in the rare cases where, in the opinion of competent medical counsel, the life or good health of the mother is seriously endangered or where the pregnancy was caused by rape and produces serious emotional trauma in the mother. Even then it should be done only after counseling with the local presiding priesthood authority and after receiving divine confirmation through prayer.”

Which, frankly, leaves a pro-life voter in an interesting position. If it is true that a conscientious pro-lifer cannot vote for a pro-choice candidate, as seems to have been the traditional position of pro-life organizations, then neither President Obama nor Governor Romney should receive a pro-life vote. Much the same argument has been made before regarding a host of other elections by Mark Shea and others.  Here is what Cardinal Burke has to say:

It has been very explicitly argued in EWTN's Brief Catechism on Voting.  Excerpts:

3. If I think that a pro-abortion candidate will, on balance, do much more for the culture of life than a pro-life candidate, why may I not vote for the pro-abortion candidate?

If a political candidate supported abortion, or any other moral evil, such as assisted suicide and euthanasia, for that matter, it would not be morally permissible for you to vote for that person.

This is because, in voting for such a person, you would become an accomplice in the moral evil at issue. For this reason, moral evils such as abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide are examples of a “disqualifying issue.” A disqualifying issue is one which is of such gravity and importance that it allows for no political maneuvering. It is an issue that strikes at the heart of the human person and is non-negotiable. A disqualifying issue is one of such enormity that by itself renders a candidate for office unacceptable regardless of his position on other matters. You must sacrifice your feelings on other issues because you know that you cannot participate in any way in an approval of a violent and evil violation of basic human rights. A candidate for office who supports abortion rights or any other moral evil has disqualified himself as a person that you can vote for.

You do not have to vote for a person because he is pro-life. But you may not vote for any candidate who supports abortion rights.

Key to understanding the point above about “disqualifying issues” is the distinction between policy and moral principle. On the one hand, there can be a legitimate variety of approaches to accomplishing a morally acceptable goal. For example, in a society’s effort to distribute the goods of health care to its citizens, there can be legitimate disagreement among citizens and political candidates alike as to whether this or that health care plan would most effectively accomplish society’s goal. In the pursuit of the best possible policy or strategy, technical as distinct (although not separate) from moral reason is operative. Technical reason is the kind of reasoning involved in arriving at the most efficient or effective result.

On the other hand, no policy or strategy that is opposed to the moral principles of the natural law is morally acceptable. Thus, technical reason should always be subordinate to and normed by moral reason, the kind of reasoning that is the activity of conscience and that is based on the natural moral law.

Further down the EWTN Catechism, we do get a mitigating circumstance. Excerpt:

8. What if none of the candidates are completely pro-life?

As Pope John Paul II explains in his encyclical, Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life), “…when it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects.” Logically, it follows from these words of the Pope that a voter may likewise vote for that candidate who will most likely limit the evils of abortion or any other moral evil at issue...

Does this mean that a person could vote for Romney in good conscience? He certainly has not demonstrated an "absolute personal opposition to procured abortion."  If Ryan was the head of the ticket, perhaps one could vote for him in good conscience since his opposition to procured abortion is well known.  Even if the ticket would permit a rape and incest exception, I think you could argue that, given Ryan's established record, supporting the candidate would mean supporting a marked reduction in the number of unborn children killed and so be permissible.

But I think in this election, either the pro-life organizations throw their support behind a third party ticket, or else they stop telling people that they can't vote for pro-choice Democrats.

For more information, see here.