Let me start by saying I have to vote. I don’t have a choice. I am compelled by something, mostly my love of history. After reading tons of accounts about the lives spent and lost for my liberty, I just have to vote. And then top it off with I’m a woman, and with all the women who fought to give me the right to vote. It’s just important to me. I have always wanted my voice to be heard, so it would be hypocritical to not vote.
In the debates, last week, John McCain just killed me. I want to like him, I mean I really really want to, mostly cause he’s the only pro-life candidate. But his use of air quotes when describing “health of the mother” argument on the issue of abortion, was more than simply cringe worthy. It was riot worthy. You know, John McCain, I’m against partial birth abortions too (even in rare health of the mother cases), but you don’t have to belittle thousands of American women by your trite hand gestures. “Health of the mother” situations are real and painful and I don’t want anyone referring my health in air quotes. Especially not a presidential candidate.
So I started looking for some third party candidates and I fell in political love with some of them. There candidates who believe that the privatization of insurance and medical companies are evil. They have candidates that believe in the continuation of affirmative action. They have candidates who actually want to do something about education and the economy and the environment and health care and minority rights and the war.
And everyone of those candidates I loved (on the liberal and socialist end, as if you didn’t know) was also wildly pro-choice. I mean wildly.
And I’m wildly pro-life.
You know what? it’s hard to be a pro life woman, well at least a liberal pro life woman. Especially in my community. Where everyone is told (directly or indirectly) to vote based on a handful of issues (incredibly important ones). It’s hard because all my other deeply seeded beliefs lead me away from the one “approved” candidate.
I’m still undecided about what to do. My wonderfully wise husband suggested that I take the issues and in my own heart prioritize them as I think God would. What would he consider the most important and righteous issues of the day? If I vote for those, with that in mind, I may very well be casting a vote for a man I dislike, but I think I could say to the Lord with clear conscious, “I tried to be responsible with my voice, I tried to do what you would do, I tried to judge like you would judge, in my very human, very limited way.”
Maybe at the end of the day, I know that no matter who takes office, there will be no real justice, no real change, I can only be counted as one who wanted her voice to be heard.
6 comments
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October 31, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Kat Across the Pond
Interesting. I’m also wildly pro-life. But I would not want the choice of that to be taken away. Because if that happens, guess what will happen next? Back street abortions, clandestine quacks and money-spinners will abound. Because many of those who are desperate enough to want an abortion, won’t consider the consequences. It’s similar in Northern Ireland, but at least they’re ‘just’ a hop across the water away from the UK mainland, where abortion is legal. So this leaves me in an interesting position, from which I emerge truly post modern: I’m pro-life for me. I will speak up for pro-life to everyone who asks my opinion. I would support my girlfriends in pro-life choices. But I do not live other people’s lives and therefore I cannot make their choices. Difficult.
October 31, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Kristen
Hey Kat- Good to hear from you and thanks for bringing up that point. Here’s where I would differ. I don’t want to give people the choice to do something that I believe is morally wrong. Just like I don’t want prostitution to be legalized or murder or rape or theft or uthenesia. The goverment is constantly and rightfully restricting our freedom based on morality. If I believe that abortion is murder (which I do) I should vote that my government should make abortion illegal just like murder.
Now here is another interesting point, while I believe that a vote for McCain is better than a vote for Obama in the area of pro-life issues, I honestly don’t think we’ll ever see abortion made illegal. It just won’t happen. There are a lot of checks and balances in our goverenment and so realistically, McCain won’t be any more succesful than Bush has been in this area. Bottom line, we would need to radically change the tide of morality in America, I just don’t see that happening in the next four or even eight years. But I still want to vote and be counted as one who said, Abortion is wrong and is so aggregious that I’m willing to cast my vote for that one issue (and maybe a handful of others).
November 1, 2008 at 9:20 am
Kat Across the Pond
I guess there are two arguments here – the one is abortion, the other is politics. If we’re talking politics, I am not sure that ’single-issue voting’ is the way forward. I think that you have to look at the whole package that a candidate has to offer and vote on the whole manifesto, because that’s what (hopefully!) you’ll get when the candidate moves into office. Personally (said as a non-American, not living in the country) I think there are probably bigger issues that need to be addressed in American politics than abortion (as horrific as that can be).
As for abortion, and the government restricting our freedom based on morality, the problem with that is that perhaps you’re confusing legality and morality. We have to agree on what is legal in order to live together in a functioning community. With regard to morality, whereas there are many areas where it will overlap with legality, and the one informs the other, the two are not contiguous. In other words, if laws are made on the basis of a person’s morality, that can very quickly be abused, i.e. all the nonsense of prayer not being allowed in state schools (in the US).
A system where morality is enforced by law borders on totalitarianism. See the Taliban…
In the New Jerusalem, I’m sure there will be no abortion, but until then, people have to make hard choices, and I’m sure God is big enough for that.
x
November 3, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Kristen
Hey Kat, you bring up some good points. I guess ultimately Obama’s stances on a few key issues really speak to me about him as a leader.
I don’t mind being a single issue voter (more like a handful), especially when that issue is abortion. I wouldn’t have always said that, I cringe a little bit when I say it now, but it’s the truth. After all the heart wrestling, it’s where I have landed.
Again, we all get to vote for the kind of leader we want in office, we all get to choose the issues that we hold most dearly, we all get to decide which side of the fence to stand on, and maybe this side doesn’t hold my views perfectly or even closely, but neither does the other side and that other side; it scares the crap out of me.
November 4, 2008 at 8:23 am
Kat Across the Pond
Yes I understand that – it must be hard to choose from a bunch of leaders out of which no one seems to really quite represent my vote.
In the end, you can only pray about it and then pray some more. And if you have peace in your heart about your choice, go for it. In the end, God has a bit of a say in it as well – that’s reassuring to me from all the way across the pond.
All the best for voting day today – I’ll be praying for you guys. x
December 25, 2008 at 1:14 pm
bhittai
I think first of all the girls should not get pregnant rather not have sex so that there is no question of pro or against. You dont have to fight if you do it right.