In last fall’s presidential election pro-life voters were faced with a difficult
moral choice emblematic of the politics of abortion in general: Does moral principle
demand a vote for a marginally pro-life candidate with a chance of winning,
or does it demand a vote for a completely pro-life candidate who has little
to no chance of winning? Judie Brown of the American Life League, among others,
took pro-lifers to task for choosing the former principle rather than the latter
in their support of George W. Bush. (For purposes of this discussion, I will
accept the claim that Bush is “marginally” pro-life, although the accuracy of
the term is debatable.) Pointing out that Bush supports exceptions for rape,
incest, and life of the mother, she reminded voters that “every abortion is
a direct attack on God, as Pope John Paul II pointed out in Evangelium Vitae,
and therefore a politician who favors this violence, even if only in limited
circumstances, is not pro-life. He or she is at odds with God’s commandment:
‘Thou shalt not kill.’ I cannot in good conscience cast my vote for someone
who favors the total destruction of even one baby, even when I am challenged
with the argument that the ‘other guy’ is even worse. . . . It is not . . .
our job to get ‘the lesser of two evils’ elected.”

The election, of course, is now long over, but so long as America remains a
democratic republic the dilemma will continue in various forms. What, then,
is the responsibility of the pro-life voter? Judie Brown’s implication that
it is morally illicit to vote for a candidate who supports abortion, even in
limited cases, while immensely attractive for those who feel deeply the horror
of abortion (as I do), is based on a principle that is deeply flawed and therefore
politically dangerous. In the seductive guise of moral purity, it represents
a failure to distinguish between degrees of cooperation in moral choice and
collapses an ethic of political choice into an individual ethic. In so doing,
it virtually removes pro-lifers from effective engagement with politics, and
surrenders “the world” to moral evil.

In saying all of this, I should make it clear that my argument is not
that all pro-lifers have a responsibility to temporize with evil. People can
legitimately disagree over the best course of action in the circumstances, and
there are sufficient grounds to make it at least plausible that cooperation
with the establishment (the “marginally pro-life”) will not serve the ultimate
purpose of ending abortion in America. But this is a calculation of prudence,
and differs greatly from the argument that it is morally illicit to support
a “marginally” pro-life candidate. It is this last argument that merits careful
examination and strong refutation. 

What are the principles at stake? First, it is never morally licit to choose
an intrinsic evil, such as abortion. The classic case is “Sophie’s choice,”
where the mother is asked to choose which child she will spare from death, or
both will be killed. The correct choice (though some ethicists disagree on this
point) is to refuse to choose even if both children will be killed, and even
if one could be saved, for if she chooses, she is cooperating in the evil.

“Sophie’s choice” should be differentiated from “the case of the runaway train.”
Here, you are driving a runaway train (that is, with no brakes) which reaches
a split in the tracks. On the one side is one person; on the other side are
two people. In this case, your responsibility is to choose the “lesser evil,”
which is the track with only one person. This case differs from the first in
that it does not involve cooperation with moral evil (you are not willing or
causing the driving force of the train), and that necessity therefore demands
a choice.

Both of the these types of cases, in turn, should be distinguished from “the
principle of double effect” in which, under certain circumstances, one must
choose a good even with the knowledge that an evil will result. The conditions
are: 1) the moral object must not be evil; 2) the evil result is tolerated,
not intended; 3) the good effect doesn’t result directly from the evil effect;
and 4) there must be a proportionate reason for doing the act. The classic case
here is ectopic pregnancy, in which the fallopian tube must be removed, even
when the result will be the death of the child. Here the moral object is to
save the life of the mother, and the action to achieve that object is removal
of the fallopian tube, not the direct killing of the unborn child. The death
of the child (a great material evil) is tolerated (not directly intended
or caused) because the moral object (the life of the mother) is sufficiently
proportionate to it.

Before we can ask into which of these categories a vote for a marginally pro-life
candidate should be placed, we must distinguish multiple levels of cooperation
with evil. In every abortion, for example, there are multiple persons involved
to various degrees. There is the mother, the father (perhaps), the abortionist,
the assistants at the clinic, the receptionist, etc. But there is also the manufacturer
of the medical instruments that make abortion possible, the owner of the building
in which the abortion takes place, the citizens who know abortion is transpiring
and yet refuse to help the baby, the judges who gave the woman the “right” to
have the abortion, the executive who enforces the “right,” the grocery store
that sells the abortionist food and consequently takes “blood money,” and so
on, ad infinitum.

Is each of these individuals equally culpable for the murder? Are there some
on this list who are not culpable, although they may indirectly have assisted
in the murder? We can treat this problem by distinguishing between formal and
informal, mediate and immediate types of cooperation. Formal cooperation means
that the person intends the same end as the person with whom he or she
is cooperating. An example would be the cooperation between the mother seeking
the abortion and the abortionist. Both are culpable for the evil in which they
cooperate. Informal cooperation refers to a circumstance in which a person does
not intend the evil end of the person with whom he or she is cooperating; the
extent of moral culpability depends upon the immediacy of the help offered to
the person committing the immoral act. Immediate informal cooperation is thus
illicit even though the evil is not intended. For example, when the abortion
nurse hands the doctor the suction curettage device while telling herself “what
this doctor is doing is evil,” she is still culpable. At some point, however,
immediate informal cooperation becomes mediate and lessens significantly in
culpability. That is, there is some point at which your cooperation with evil
intentions is so attenuated that you are no longer culpable for the deeds of
the evildoer.

With these principles established, I propose that a vote for a marginally pro-life
candidate, under certain circumstances, is (at the very least) an instance of
informal, mediate cooperation with evil and corresponds most closely to the
principle of double-effect outlined above. Consider the conditions: Is a vote
for a marginally pro-life candidate, in this case George W. Bush, an intrinsic
evil? No. There is, after all, no commandment that says, “Thou shalt not vote
for George Bush.” But does my vote for George Bush make me complicit in abortions
that he deems acceptable? Once again, the answer is no, for this case constitutes
an informal, mediate cooperation at best. In voting for Bush our intention is
to save lives (thus placing it in the informal cooperation category).
Nor will our vote directly result in the death of any children (thus the cooperation
is not immediate). George W. Bush will not directly kill any unborn children.
Abortion law is permissive, not dictative (which is why America is not Nazi
Germany; there is no government-sponsored pogrom here). Theoretically, the “right”
to abortion could be protected without a single abortion taking place.

In fact, most voting falls under the informal mediate cooperation category.
If voters treated perfect consistency and goodness as necessary attributes of
candidates for office (assuming we each could discover this down to the last
detail before they received our vote), virtually every vote we could cast would
be sinful. In choosing a political candidate one must weigh a variety of factors.
Among those factors, sanctity of life is foremost, and has a priority above
all others. But this is not the only consideration. For example, if a
candidate is anti-abortion, but also a Nazi or Fascist or certifiably insane,
then one would have to consider the costs involved in choosing him or her. Another
factor is the ability to choose the greatest good in the circumstances, so long
as that good does not directly involve us in an evil.

“But,” the Judie Brown party might ask, “by protecting the ‘right to kill’
by law in those cases, isn’t Bush cooperating with evil in an illicit way?”
It depends. Bush did not create the situation we presently live in. It was handed
to him. Thus he must deal with circumstances as they are given. Those circumstances
are such that there is virtually no protection for the unborn. In this case
he would not be protecting the right to kill the unborn in limited cases, but
would be preventing the killing of the unborn in all but those cases.
If we were living in a time before Roe v. Wade, the situation might be
different.

But still, one might say, “Bush does support the ‘right’ to abortion in some
cases, and surely this isn’t good.” To which one must reply: Of course it isn’t,
but what are my responsibilities? One responsibility is to achieve the greatest
possible good under the circumstances. We live in a regime that protects the
right to abortion on demand. How can we best save lives under these circumstances?
There is strong reason to believe that a Bush presidency will result in the
saving of at least some lives that would otherwise be lost. Note that we are
not agreeing to the killing of some to save others. The killing will happen
regardless. We are agreeing to the saving of as many lives as we can, and we
are willing to tolerate the lesser evil because that is a reasonable
choice which meets all of the criteria for double-effect above: our object is
to save children (a moral good); we do not intend the death of children in the
exceptions; we are not saving the children by killing others (remember, they
will die regardless); and the saving of the single life is sufficiently proportionate
to the necessity.

Is this, then, to justify a horrendous toleration of evil? Wouldn’t it be best
to remove ourselves entirely from it? No. Living in this world nearly always
involves some toleration of evil for the sake of a greater good, or to avoid
a greater evil. This principle was set forward by Thomas Aquinas in the Summa
Theologiae (II-II, q.10, a.11) using the government of God as the archetype:
“Human government is derived from the Divine government, and should imitate
it. Now although God is all-powerful and supremely good, nevertheless He allows
certain evils to take place in the universe, which He might prevent, lest, without
them, greater goods might be forfeited, or greater evils ensue. Accordingly
in human government also, those who are in authority rightly tolerate certain
evils lest certain goods be lost, or certain greater evils be incurred.” (Incidentally,
both Aquinas and Augustine tolerated prostitution on these grounds.) Of course,
government tolerating an evil is not identical to choosing a political candidate,
but on examination there is no reason why the same principle should not apply
to both cases. Perhaps more to the point is St. Thomas More, recently designated
by John Paul II as “patron saint of statesmen.” In the Utopia, in the
context of a dispute over whether the philosopher has the responsibility to
offer counsel to kings, the character Thomas More responds with the following:

If you cannot pluck up bad
ideas by the root, or cure long-standing evils to your heart’s content, you
must not therefore abandon the commonwealth. Don’t give up the ship in a storm
because you cannot direct the winds. . . . You must strive to influence policy
indirectly, urge your case vigorously but tactfully, and thus what you cannot
turn to good, you may at least make as little bad as possible. For it is impossible
to make everything good unless all men are good, and that I don’t expect to
see for quite a few years yet.

Of course, there is a point at which temporizing with evil is no longer licit,
as when a regime becomes so thoroughly unjust that revolution is required. Few
pro-lifers sincerely believe America has reached this point, however.

As for those who worry that all engagement with the contemporary world implies
cooperation with evil, a number of options present themselves. While some are
called to engage the world “as it is”—that is, to work within the muddy circumstances
in such a way that they can bring out the greatest good—others are called to
a more contemplative life, in which they engage the world through prayer and
mortification. In so doing, they assist lay persons, who are primarily called
to engage the world directly. In addition, still others may judge that under
the circumstances politics will not change the world, and thus that they should
build small communities which will be “leaven” to the world. Finally, some may
choose to engage the world in a symbolic fashion, by sending a message, rather
than by temporizing with the circumstances. Thus they might choose to vote for
a consistently pro-life candidate who has no chance of winning the election.
They may do this because they believe that temporizing under the circumstances
will only make things worse and that through their symbolic resistance they
are planting a seed that will eventually bear fruit. All of these are legitimate
responses to our situation, and it would be foolish to reject any one of them
for lack of moral purity. On the contrary, what must be rejected is precisely
the view of those who treat their refusal to engage directly with the world
as evidence of their own moral superiority. This false conception of ethical
purity inappropriately denigrates the tremendous good that Christians are able
to achieve in the world through various disparate practices.

Judie Brown and others are to be commended for reminding voters that abortion
is always murder, even in so-called exceptions. They are right to challenge
pro-lifers not to become complacent about the horrors of abortion policy in
America today. But our common work on behalf of the unborn cannot tolerate divisiveness
based on a false understanding of prudence and a misguided quest for moral purity.

Nathan Schlueter, a new contributor, is Assistant Professor of Political Science
at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, Iowa.