There are plenty of well financed and powerful sources promoting the view that a vote for Romney is the only principled choice for Catholics. I was heartened to read this commentary on the National Catholic Reporter website by Nicholas P. Cafardi, civil and canon lawyer (a canon lawyer is an expert on the legal processes used to adjudicate conflicts within the Catholic Church), and co-chair of "Catholics for Obama".
If you have family members conflicted on this issue, or talk to Catholics who share these concerns, please click through and read the short article. It is about as concise an argument that I've seen why anyone who wants to decrease the number of abortions in this country should vote for Obama and Democrats.
A few highlights:
There is no doubt Obama is pro-choice. He has said so many times. There is also no doubt Romney is running on what he calls a pro-life platform. But any honest analysis of the facts shows the situation is much more complicated than that.
Cafardi points out that while the ACA does not fund abortions, Massachusett's RomneyCare does. Additionally, the ACA includes $250 million in funding to support vulnerable pregnant women and fund alternatives to abortion, all of which would be eliminated in the Ryan budget.
He then goes on (my favorite part) to point out that Romney has been an abortion profiteer, summarizing the Bain/ Stericycle story (short version: Bain and therefore Romney made lots of money off of a company which discarded aborted fetuses for hospitals). He also discusses Bain's financing by the same Salvadorean families who financed the death squads that murdered thousands of poor as well as Catholic priests, nuns, and Bishop Oscar Romero in the 80's.
The whole discussion is made in the larger context of right wing Catholics' heads exploding when Cardinal Dolan (no flaming liberal) invited President Obama (as well as Romney) to speak at the annual Al Smith Dinner in NYC.
There are many in my family for whom right to life issues are key to their voting choices. It's important for us to not cede this ground to the Republicans. Here's some language to help you with that conversation.
I'm not doing Cafardi's article justice- please click through and read it if this is an important issue for you.
