In a column this year, Archbishop Chaput wrote that Catholics could support a politician who supported abortion only if they had a “compelling proportionate reason” to justify it. “What is a ‘proportionate’ reason when it comes to the abortion issue?” the archbishop wrote. “It’s the kind of reason we will be able to explain, with a clean heart, to the victims of abortion when we meet them face to face in the next life — which we most certainly will. If we’re confident that these victims will accept our motives as something more than an alibi, then we can proceed.”
According to this article (also from which this quote was lifted), the Roman Catholics voted for Bush.
Today the death toll in Iraq, according to this site, is estimated between 86,496 - 94,376.
Based on the numbers reported to the Centers for Disease Control, the number of legally induced abortions in the US in 2004 was a staggering 839,226. This number is lower than the previous year by about 1%.
When I first read the above quote, I mistakenly, nay ignorantly, thought that surely the number of deaths in Iraq would outnumber induced abortions in the US. And I wondered what would we say to those killed in war should we meet them in the next life if we were a person who voted for Bush.
War, of course, has many other horrendous consequences that can't be captured statistically, as I'm sure there are many unfortunate consequences of induced abortions and unwanted babies.
Based on the numbers alone, I can no longer harshly dismiss or criticize the rationale behind those who voted for Bush and who will vote for McCain this fast-approaching November.
Each person must vote according to their conscience and values. Who can judge a person for that? I'm finding it difficult to do so now that the numbers are staring at me in the face and--Warning! Graphic mental image alert!!! Don't read any further!!!--a graphic mental image of a balance scale with 800,000 fetuses on one side trying to balance out the other with 90,000 war casualties has embedded itself in my mind.
Not a pretty sight.
2 comments:
Let me see if I have your reasoning straight.
Bush's war, for its first five years, has cost (conservatively estimated, since it depends on public announcements) 90,000 people--18,000 per year. (Not counting about 1,000 US fatalities per year, plus some number of non-US forces.) Let's round off and say 19,000.
By contrast, if we credit the entire decline in abortions to GWB's policies, we get (rounding up) 8,500 lives. (Let's ignore that the US infant mortality rate is not zero as well, and assume that all the fetuses would have been viable.)
So I have to explain to each fetus that saving it cost at least 19/8.5 = 2.2 people.
I can live with that.
Ken, you should double-check your math. You are off by a decimal point. (more or less)
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