Why You Should Vote Conservative

As Canadians head to the polls next week, I make one plea: vote to protect the pre-born.

We’ve had abortion in Canada for so long it can be hard to imagine that it will ever leave. But a truly strong and beautiful Canada must be committed to protect the life of all her citizens, at all stages: young and old, healthy and ill, born and pre-born.

I think that we have been living with the reality of abortion for so long that we become deadened to its horror. Our legal system allows for the dismembering of a baby at 9 months gestation, provided that some part of it is still inside the mother. Though many are unaware of this, it is a fact.

And we should all recoil at this fact. It is awful.

In the USA abortion has been thrust into the spotlight by recent scandals (see here and here). They do, to some degree, grasp the cold reality of abortion. But in Canada we keep hearing that people don’t want this debate “re-opened.” As though it was ever closed...

I argue that as long as lives are being taken, the discussion can never be closed. And that’s what abortion is: taking babies' lives.

Before you vote on Monday, please think long and hard about abortion.

I know that the Conservatives have not taken great strides to limit abortion, and that members who have brought forth bills to do so were opposed by the Prime Minister. I am not Harper’s biggest fan, by any stretch.

And I think it is shameful that we don’t have a real pro life party to rally around. It really is awful and unacceptable, and it creates the climate that allows abortion at all stages, and the perpetual imprisonment of grandmothers who demonstrate against it.

But of the three major parties, we have two that refuse to allow pro life members (Liberals and NDP) and who are committed to the expansion of abortion (even funding it in other countries).

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This is a disqualifying characteristic, in my view. Whatever good positions they may have, they have taken themselves out of the running by their obstinate disregard for the lives our most defenceless young.

And then we have one that is not doing enough about it, but not avowedly committed to making things worse. This one at least allows pro life members. I’ve actually seen them and spoken with them at the March for Life each year.

And they may one day have a pro life party leader.

In a case of no great options, you have to choose the least bad. That’s why I’m voting Conservative.

Am I a one-issue voter? In a sense, yes. I care about many other issues a good deal. The opposition parties may be better on a few of them.

But abortion is the worst legal thing I can think of. It is, in the words of Fr. Neuhaus, the greatest human rights issue of our time, and of all times.

That’s the one issue I put above all others come election time.

Further reading: the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops Federal Elections guide

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