Oct 2, 2008
The intricacies of Catholic moral theology have never been my strong suit. Rather than use the law to nitpick and condemn people, I'm far too inclined to be on the side of the sinner and give people the benefit of the doubt. For those who quibble over the morality of a particular action, I'm too inclined to skip the detail work and look at the big picture.
But it doesn't take a Jesuitical moral theologian to figure out a recent moral conundrum that has taken the fancy of some American Catholics. In this presidential race they are faced with the choice of one party that is in favor of abortion and another party that is in favor of a war that many believe to be unjust. Some Catholics who wish to vote Democratic justify their choice by saying, "We're going to have the killing of innocent people one way or another. With Democrats, innocent people will die through abortion. With Republicans, innocent lives are lost through war. There will be terrible deaths both ways. Let's focus on immigration and the economy."
The unnecessary suffering and death of any human being at the hand of another is to be decried, and while all human life is equally precious, not all killing is of the same moral seriousness. The rape and murder of an innocent ten-year-old girl is more horrific and wicked than the death by lethal injection of the man who did the crime. Likewise, the deaths caused by abortion are not to be equated with the lives lost in war. This is not to minimize the horror of war, or argue that a particular war is just or unjust. It is simply to make the simple moral argument that the war in Iraq is not of the same moral order as abortion -- and here's why.
First we have the question of proportionality of both numbers and time. How many people have been killed through abortion, and how many people are being killed in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? There have been around 4,000 military deaths in Iraq and about 1,000 in Afghanistan, and there have been around 90,000 deaths caused by internecine violence in Iraq. The war has been going on for five years. In comparison, deaths from abortion in the United States have been going on for 35 years, and abortions worldwide number about 42 million per year. The sheer number deaths over time involved in these two issues are not morally equivalent.