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Wednesday open thread: pro-life and politics

Recovered crosses in Eric's garagePictured here are the memorial crosses sponsored by participants at the “We’re Here for Life” Rally on Saturday, October 27—all piled up in my garage. As Matt reported, they were found dug up and left in the parkway on Monday, October 29 and reinstalled that afternoon, then confiscated by police on Thursday, November 1 and recovered by pro-lifers the next day—fittingly on All Souls Day in the Roman Catholic Church. Our information is that the city legal department authorized the removal of the crosses. The legal department answers to the mayor, which both illustrates the importance of even a mere mayoral election to the pro-life cause (not to mention the cause of freedom), and suggests a possible topic for this Wednesday’s discussion thread: pro-life and politics. There is a mistaken notion that the only office that really “matters” is the presidency, since the president appoints Supreme Court justices, and only they can overturn Roe v. Wade. I doubt many readers of this blog hold that view, but some conservative pundits certainly do. But there are probably many here who would disagree with some of my views about voting pragmatically to advance the pro-life cause. Briefly, I do not believe that a vote is an endorsement of all a candidate’s positions or values, but rather an exercise of power to advance ones own causes, which sometimes means trying to defend those causes by choosing the least harmful among viable candidates. And I know that there are elected officials who read this blog and argue that because their constituents differ on the abortion issue, they must remain “neutral”—which in practice invariably means standing with the “pro-choice” side. So there are many facets of the relationships between the pro-life mission and politics, and I offer here the opportunity to discuss them, or any other pro-life topic you choose.

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