The USCCB stated abortion and euthanasia are pre-eminent threats “because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental good and condition for all others”; Cardinal Ratzinger countered “proportionate reasons.” Would you agree that such a threat/reason is only proportionate, if it a. attacks life itself, or b. is a more fundamental good? My friends who vote Democrat roughly use a., citing closed borders, for example, as an attack on life proportionate to abortion. Are you arguing b.: that a vote against Trump is necessary to preserve a two-party system, a good upon which the right to life depends?
Thanks for reading, and for the thoughtful question, Hunter!
Are you familiar with the principle of double effect? Among other things, it stipulates that when we engage in actions that have both good and bad effects (which is probably most of what we do!), the good effects must be beneficial enough to compensate for tolerating the bad effects. (That’s one necessary requirement, not the only one! Otherwise we would be talking about mere proportionalism.)
In applying double effect to voting, we are concerned with likely effects, with plausible outcomes. As I wrote in my preamble piece on voting pro-life, voters often use politicians’ stated policies as a proxy for the likely effects of voting one way or the other. This makes prima facie sense, partly because we can’t really know what will happen if one candidate wins versus the other, but it’s reasonable to assume that, generally speaking, the causes favored by the winning candidate will probably fare better than the causes they oppose that are favored by their opponent. Still: It’s effects, not mere policies, that we are ultimately concerned with. (Policies as such are also important—the law is a teacher, and policies can be at least a kind of teacher’s aide—but even this importance concerns the effects of the winning candidate favoring a given policy. It’s all about effects.)
Here is how I looked at it from a pro-life point of view in 2016. As a thought experiment, suppose I could somehow know, hypothetically speaking, that Trump winning the election would lead to widespread acceptance of significant abortion restrictions (say, laws against elective abortions after 12 weeks), along with social programs aimed at alleviating economic pressures driving abortion (say, programs providing needy mothers with help getting housing and food and heathcare). That would obviously be a massive improvement over the status quo, and such an enormously positive effect that it would be worth tolerating very significant evils to achieve it.
Well, in 2016 my calculus was that it seemed unlikely to me that we would get anything like that substantial a positive effect out of the Trump administration. I did not think Trump could be trusted to nominate good justices, and I considered it entirely possible that he would not help the pro-life cause at all. I also believed that the *harm* to the pro-life movement from its association with a candidate so infamous for bullying, lying, ignorance, and corruption would be considerable.
I believed, in short, that Trump would be a net *negative* for the pro-life cause. Thus, without even weighing the importance of the pro-life cause against any other considerations, I concluded that, based solely on what I judged to be the likely benefit to the pro-life cause vs. the likely harm to the pro-life cause, one could conclude that supporting Trump was not prudent. (I did consider other factors as well, but already on the basis of the pro-life cause alone I considered Trump a net negative.)
As it turns out, my guesses about the likely effects of Trump’s presidency did run into an important complication when Trump unexpectedly got three Supreme Court picks, and all three candidates he chose (each of whom was vetted by the Federalist Society) voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. As I said in my voting pro-life piece, this was a holy grail of the pro-life movement and an important, and importantly correct, decision by the Supreme Court.
Now, it’s unfortunate that this important and correct decision was tainted by the hypocritical role played by Republican leaders in shaping this Court, first claiming that the American people deserved a say as their excuse for blocking Merrick Garland for nearly a year, and then turning around and ramming through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination in the final weeks of Trump’s administration. And I think that state-level abortion restrictions passed in the wake of Dobbs have sometimes made things worse instead of better.
Still, if someone wants to argue that, in fact, the positive effect of overturning Roe is beneficial enough to compensate for the bad effects of Trump’s first administration, well, I would prefer to take a practical tack in responding, and say: “Even if you’re right about what actually happened last time, is there any reason to think that a second Trump administration is likely to deliver a second major pro-life breakthrough proportionate to the very clear bad effects of a second Trump term as outlined in my argument above?”
Overturning Roe was something Trump got by following the recommendations of the Federalist Society and by a convergence of circumstances and Republican chicanery. The battles now to be waged to make America more or less pro-life are much more at the state level than the federal level—and both Trump and the GOP are distancing themselves from the pro-life cause. The new Republican National Convention platform no longer even calls for a national effort to reduce abortions, instead relegating it to the states. Well, then, what’s the pro-life value of national Republican leaders? Trump’s VP pick has said that Trump would veto a national abortion ban, and Trump himself promised that his administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.” That’s why major pro-life leaders like Lila Rose are turning on him.
Dobbs or no Dobbs, Trump has clearly hurt the pro-life movement. Not so long ago it was possible to believe that the pro-life message was gaining ground with the American public. Today it’s clear that we have lost ground in recent years. More Americans today say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases than ever before, and fewer say it should be illegal in all or most cases. If pro-lifers continue to embrace Trump, it will only further poison the movement both morally and socially. Will it accomplish any good proportionate to those evil effects, not to mention all the other evil effects, such as the continuing erosion of democracy? It seems highly unlikely to me.
I'm voting for the candidate opposed by Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney. The candidate opposed by advocates for mutilating children. The candidate opposed by the military-industrial complex. The candidate opposed by the deep state that has already nearly wrecked American democracy. You do what you like.
I am no Trump fan. But faced with a binary choice one must choose. I live in a country that has been devastated by the consequences of Clinton/Bush/McCain/Romney/Obama/Biden foreign policy. Adding 4+ years of Kamala Harris (who is just a puppet for the real powers behind her) is not something we can afford.
The USCCB stated abortion and euthanasia are pre-eminent threats “because they directly attack life itself, the most fundamental good and condition for all others”; Cardinal Ratzinger countered “proportionate reasons.” Would you agree that such a threat/reason is only proportionate, if it a. attacks life itself, or b. is a more fundamental good? My friends who vote Democrat roughly use a., citing closed borders, for example, as an attack on life proportionate to abortion. Are you arguing b.: that a vote against Trump is necessary to preserve a two-party system, a good upon which the right to life depends?
Thanks for reading, and for the thoughtful question, Hunter!
Are you familiar with the principle of double effect? Among other things, it stipulates that when we engage in actions that have both good and bad effects (which is probably most of what we do!), the good effects must be beneficial enough to compensate for tolerating the bad effects. (That’s one necessary requirement, not the only one! Otherwise we would be talking about mere proportionalism.)
In applying double effect to voting, we are concerned with likely effects, with plausible outcomes. As I wrote in my preamble piece on voting pro-life, voters often use politicians’ stated policies as a proxy for the likely effects of voting one way or the other. This makes prima facie sense, partly because we can’t really know what will happen if one candidate wins versus the other, but it’s reasonable to assume that, generally speaking, the causes favored by the winning candidate will probably fare better than the causes they oppose that are favored by their opponent. Still: It’s effects, not mere policies, that we are ultimately concerned with. (Policies as such are also important—the law is a teacher, and policies can be at least a kind of teacher’s aide—but even this importance concerns the effects of the winning candidate favoring a given policy. It’s all about effects.)
Here is how I looked at it from a pro-life point of view in 2016. As a thought experiment, suppose I could somehow know, hypothetically speaking, that Trump winning the election would lead to widespread acceptance of significant abortion restrictions (say, laws against elective abortions after 12 weeks), along with social programs aimed at alleviating economic pressures driving abortion (say, programs providing needy mothers with help getting housing and food and heathcare). That would obviously be a massive improvement over the status quo, and such an enormously positive effect that it would be worth tolerating very significant evils to achieve it.
Well, in 2016 my calculus was that it seemed unlikely to me that we would get anything like that substantial a positive effect out of the Trump administration. I did not think Trump could be trusted to nominate good justices, and I considered it entirely possible that he would not help the pro-life cause at all. I also believed that the *harm* to the pro-life movement from its association with a candidate so infamous for bullying, lying, ignorance, and corruption would be considerable.
I believed, in short, that Trump would be a net *negative* for the pro-life cause. Thus, without even weighing the importance of the pro-life cause against any other considerations, I concluded that, based solely on what I judged to be the likely benefit to the pro-life cause vs. the likely harm to the pro-life cause, one could conclude that supporting Trump was not prudent. (I did consider other factors as well, but already on the basis of the pro-life cause alone I considered Trump a net negative.)
As it turns out, my guesses about the likely effects of Trump’s presidency did run into an important complication when Trump unexpectedly got three Supreme Court picks, and all three candidates he chose (each of whom was vetted by the Federalist Society) voted to overturn Roe v. Wade. As I said in my voting pro-life piece, this was a holy grail of the pro-life movement and an important, and importantly correct, decision by the Supreme Court.
Now, it’s unfortunate that this important and correct decision was tainted by the hypocritical role played by Republican leaders in shaping this Court, first claiming that the American people deserved a say as their excuse for blocking Merrick Garland for nearly a year, and then turning around and ramming through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination in the final weeks of Trump’s administration. And I think that state-level abortion restrictions passed in the wake of Dobbs have sometimes made things worse instead of better.
Still, if someone wants to argue that, in fact, the positive effect of overturning Roe is beneficial enough to compensate for the bad effects of Trump’s first administration, well, I would prefer to take a practical tack in responding, and say: “Even if you’re right about what actually happened last time, is there any reason to think that a second Trump administration is likely to deliver a second major pro-life breakthrough proportionate to the very clear bad effects of a second Trump term as outlined in my argument above?”
Overturning Roe was something Trump got by following the recommendations of the Federalist Society and by a convergence of circumstances and Republican chicanery. The battles now to be waged to make America more or less pro-life are much more at the state level than the federal level—and both Trump and the GOP are distancing themselves from the pro-life cause. The new Republican National Convention platform no longer even calls for a national effort to reduce abortions, instead relegating it to the states. Well, then, what’s the pro-life value of national Republican leaders? Trump’s VP pick has said that Trump would veto a national abortion ban, and Trump himself promised that his administration would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.” That’s why major pro-life leaders like Lila Rose are turning on him.
Dobbs or no Dobbs, Trump has clearly hurt the pro-life movement. Not so long ago it was possible to believe that the pro-life message was gaining ground with the American public. Today it’s clear that we have lost ground in recent years. More Americans today say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases than ever before, and fewer say it should be illegal in all or most cases. If pro-lifers continue to embrace Trump, it will only further poison the movement both morally and socially. Will it accomplish any good proportionate to those evil effects, not to mention all the other evil effects, such as the continuing erosion of democracy? It seems highly unlikely to me.
Hope that makes sense!
I'm voting for the candidate opposed by Alberto Gonzales and Dick Cheney. The candidate opposed by advocates for mutilating children. The candidate opposed by the military-industrial complex. The candidate opposed by the deep state that has already nearly wrecked American democracy. You do what you like.
I am no Trump fan. But faced with a binary choice one must choose. I live in a country that has been devastated by the consequences of Clinton/Bush/McCain/Romney/Obama/Biden foreign policy. Adding 4+ years of Kamala Harris (who is just a puppet for the real powers behind her) is not something we can afford.
What country is that, James?