Please stop. Stop running for president, stop talking in front of cameras and/or people, and please, for the love of all that is good, stop calling yourself pro-life. I'm serious, stop it.
Okay, now that I've gotten that out, please allow me to clarify what I mean. I know that in America people who oppose abortion are called pro-life. I am one of those people. However, there are a) more life issues than abortion, and b) lots of people who will take Santorum at his word, giving other pro-life folks a bad rep they don't deserve. I say this out of what remains of my political convictions, yes, but much more out of annoyance that because I call myself pro-life, I get judged by the same measure as Rick Santorum because he calls himself pro-life.
That Mr. Santorum calls himself pro-life needles me a lot for several reasons, not the least of which is that we are both Catholic and I have problems with regard to the sinful type of judging people. People like him, especially. Another reason is that, when I switched sides from being pro-choice to pro-life, I lost a lot of friends, and it became a major source of strain on my relationship with my parents. I don't take my position on any life issue lightly because I cannot afford to. I've staked a lot on these views, and so I've had to put a great deal of thought into why I hold them and how I can propose and defend them.
As I'm sure you all will no doubt have noticed, there are other issues dealt with in politics that are life or death. Euthanasia, which is often tied in with abortion in the "killing of an innocent" category, and the death penalty, which America is the only truly powerful nation in the West to employ still. Then there are more abstract matters, like war. By its very nature, people tend to die in wars. It's a function of the thing that when guns are fired or bombs dropped, people die, and they're almost never all enemy combatants. This is why the Church has what is called the Just War Doctrine, so that there is recourse for one people to fight another, but only when absolutely necessary. Just War Doctrine is extremely stringent, but this is in keeping with the Church's other teachings on the sanctity of life. Because life is sacred, the taking of it can never be considered a trivial thing.
What bothers me about Rick Santorum as he relates to the Just War Doctrine is that he has advocated publicly and in several instances that America bomb Iran because of its nuclear program, which continues to enrich Uranium for what the international community assumes is nuclear weaponry. While I personally think that it would be a travesty for a nation as radical and seemingly unstable as Iran to have a nuclear arsenal, I also think that bombing them (at least at this point in time) is a terrible idea and in violation of the Just War Doctrine. I don't think that it's a good thing for any other Republican candidates to favor this "solution" either, but the point is that Rick Santorum touts himself as the pro-life candidate, and makes a rather glib assertion that we should simply bomb Iran to force them to stop trying to get nuclear weapons. I understand that especially now, as Iran is thumbing its nose at the rest of the world over enriching Uranium, we need to find an effective way to deal with them, but bombing a country even outside the parameters of war still kills people.
I have serious qualms about any person saying that we should bomb any country for any but the most extreme reasons. There are better ways to solve problems between nations, and I think that many times military force is a cop-out. It's an easy "solution" to an issue that would take a long time and probably a lot of cooperation to work out, except that force rarely solves anything (see Germany post-WWI). I have even more serious qualms about a person running for any public office, let alone the most powerful office in the world, taking the view that we should just drop bombs on a country to force them to do what we want them to and call it a day. There are other options on the table for dealing with Iran, and we should exhaust those first. I would expect a Catholic politician whose biggest boast is how pro-life he is to consider that much more carefully than Mr. Santorum seems to have done.
I'm sick of people assuming that because there is a common factor linking me to Rick Santorum that I'm just like he is. I'm not. Sure people judge him, it would be irresponsible not to scrutinize a presidential hopeful before deciding whether or not to vote for him. But the judgement he receives is not from those closest to him, it's from the general public. On the other hand, the judgement I receive is from my family and closest friends, with some of whom I cannot afford to jeopardize my relationship any more, though I have been blessed with many who support and understand me, even if they don't agree.
Please Rick, stop telling people you are pro-life. At the risk of sounding way more arrogant than I mean to, I am pro-life, you need to go back to the drawing board. I am tired of being mocked and called a hypocrite because you can't be bothered to tell people you're anti-abortion. I think you mean well, but you're creating a lot of trouble for people who want to be associated with the right to life without being associated with you.
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