The debate/question centered on the politics of the Health Care Reform bill. Some posited the question of whether the abortion funding within the bill wasn't some sort of red hering (either intentional or accidental) that would shift the focus of conservatives, especially the pro-life conservatives (are there another kind?), into making the fight over THAT as opposed to the bill in general. One line of thinking was that if conservatives/republicans voted PRESENT on the Stupak amendment it would do two things:
- It would bring out the Democrats willing to fight the HCR Bill on certain issues, especially those close to conservative hearts.
- It would prevent the Democrats from using the amendment as a bargaining or compromise chip.(If you don't understand this, we can expand on it in the comment boxes).
Now I will admit, when I first saw this, I was pretty concerned about the amendment passing, and even more concerned that this line of thinking may be on to something! (Fear can do odd things to a man's brain, that is why we cannot live in fear.) After reading more commentary on it, and listening to people that I respect (people like T. Peters over at AmP) I realized that I was just being whipped up into a frenzy. I had lost sight of an important moral precept that I ardently oppose - the ends justifying the means. What is meant by that? Well... Matt Bowan (a fellow Ave Maria Law grad) over at CatholicVote.org wrote an article on this very issue today. He succintly explains why the battle over abortion is not something you play politics with. Doing the right thing is always proper, and should not and cannot become a means to an end.
Check out his article here:
[Green text should be read as "sub-conscience" or "under my breath" comments for the most part... I apologize for them if they offend - they are essentially my own commentary on my blog post.]
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