I just completed the course on Faithful Citizenship. Many students in the course struggle with issues related to abortion. Is it the only issue to consider when voting? Is it the most important issue to consider when voting? Is it one of many issues to consider when voting?
After several weeks of communicating with other students and our instructor on this issue, the following analogy came to me:
Late at night, a man is driving down a country road. The road is a great distance from any village, town or city. The man comes across an overturned car. About 20 feet from the car is woman who is unconscious. The man checks for a pulse. There is none. The woman is not breathing. He calls 911. Since the man just completed a CPR course, he knows that he needs to get the woman's heart going AND get her breathing. He also knows that it is most important to get her heart going. He administers the compressions to the woman's chest. After several rounds of compressions, he feels a pulse. Knowing that he needs to get her breathing, he beings mouth-to-mouth resusciation. After several breaths, she begins to breathe.
It was most important for the man to get the woman's heart to beat. She would have died very soon if he did not get her heart going. However, if all he did was get her heart going, she still would have died if he did not get her to breathe.
If a person votes on the single issue of abortion, they would be like the man in the analogy that gets the heart beating, but ignores the woman's need to breathe. She would still die. While abortion may be the moral issue that has the greatest need to be addressed, ignoring other critical issues will lead to the complete moral demise of our society. What good is having a nation where there are no abortions when we constantly face the threat of war, poverty, corporate greed, etc.?
When we vote, we need to think about CPR!
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