Voting for Pro-Abortion Candidates is "Evil," Kansas Catholic Bishops Say
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 13, 2008
Wichita, KS (LifeNews.com) — The Catholic bishops in Kansas have released a new voter’s guide that makes it clear supporting a candidate who favors legal abortions is "evil." In the joint document, they say Catholic voters would "commit moral evil" by backing candidates who support abortion, euthanasia or embryonic research.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City and Bishops Ronald Gilmore of Dodge City, Paul Coakley of Salina, and Michael Jackels of Wichita joined together to endorse the document.
They lay out a very clear argument against abortion and how voting for pro-abortion candidates promotes the violation of Church teaching.
Despite the motives voters may have for supporting pro-abortion candidates, acts that "involve doing evil" such as "elective abortion, euthanasia, physician-assisted suicide, the destruction of embryonic human beings in stem cell research, and human cloning" must be opposed.
"Such acts are judged to be intrinsically evil, that is, evil in and of themselves regardless of our motives or the circumstances. They constitute an attack against innocent human life," they say.
"In light of the above we would commit moral evil if we were to vote for a candidate who takes a permissive stand on those actions that are intrinsically evil when there is a morally-acceptable alternative," they explain.
Catholic voters who support pro-abortion candidates like Barack Obama often justify their decision by saying the candidate is in step with Catholic on other political issues.
The Kansas bishops address that and seem to support voting for the anti-abortion candidate because he supports taking fewer lives than the pro-abortion candidate.
"So when there is no choice of a candidate that avoids supporting intrinsically evil actions, especially elective abortion, we should vote in such a way as to allow the least harm to innocent human life and dignity," the bishops say.
"We would not be acting immorally therefore if we were to vote for a candidate who is not totally acceptable in order to defeat one who poses an even greater threat to human life and dignity," they conclude.
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