Be Our Guest / Stephen Martin

Abortion trumps any other ‘signal’ issue, Criterion reader says

In a recent Criterion editorial, editor emeritus John F. Fink mentioned that some people are still single-issue voters. I am one of those people. I’d like to explain my reasoning.

I guess it’s obvious that a single-issue person (voter) thinks that his issue is more important than any other issue, and further, that it is more important than any combination of other issues. That’s exactly the way I feel.

Abortion is my single issue, and the single issue of many others. For the last 40 years, I’ve never pulled the lever on a pro-choice candidate. Do I care about other issues? Of course I do.

In my life, I have worked with the inner-city poor, with immigrants and with the handicapped, and when I’m not giving my time, I’m giving my money.

But abortion is different. Recently published statistics from 2015 tell us there are 1,748 abortions every day in the U.S. That number used to be more than 3,200. Praise God we are going in the right direction!

The Monday after you read this letter, 1,748 human beings are going to be killed, and the next day 1,748 more, and the next day 1,748 more. Why is this phenomenon not equivalent to the people cremated every day during the Holocaust? Because we can’t see them? Because they’re small? Because they don’t affect me and my family? Would you not have become a single-issue voter to end the crematoriums?

In 2016, I had a chance to go to the polls and vote for a person who was one of the most pro-abortion candidates ever to run for president, Hillary Clinton. I could not do that because in my mind I have a clear image of those aborted babies. I cannot turn my head.

But millions of Catholics voted for her. Did they find climate change more important than human life, or possibly immigration reform? President Donald J. Trump is arrogant and bombastic and not my favorite person, but he promised us an anti-abortion administration and that is what he has given us.

The day that the next 1,748 children are killed via an abortion, there will be 1,748 mothers who have killed their children and 1,748 fathers who lost their child—whether they agreed with the abortion or not—and thousands of doctors and nurses and administrators who made the abortions happen. Will these people eventually repent and ask for forgiveness? It’s not only lives that are being lost, it is souls. We are becoming a nation of killers.

I care about many social justice issues. I do. But only one issue makes me cry.

When I picture that small innocent human being losing its life, I vow again to remain a single-issue voter until the day I die or until abortion becomes illegal.

Take note: Every Saturday a group of Catholics prays the rosary outside the Planned Parenthood clinic on Georgetown Road in Indianapolis at 9:30 a.m.

Come join us single-issue prayers!
 

(Stephen Martin is a member of St. Monica Parish in Indianapolis.) †