From Mr B J Toolan SIR – President Obama speaks for abortion, votes for abortion, and allocates money for abortion. Anyone who says that he is not pro-abortion is clearly confused about the difference between rational arguments and playing word games. When they are properly used, terms such as anti-abortion or pro-life can be used to clarify or generalise your arguments, but your thinking should be based on respect for the dignity and worth of each and every human being from conception to natural death.
This means that you have to refute the arguments of your political opponents rather than calling them war-mongering oppressors of the poor. The crucial difference between war and abortion is that war can sometimes be justified, but abortion can never be justified. Therefore anti-war campaigners are obliged to be anti-abortion, but pro-lifers have a right to choose not to be pacifists.
President Obama’s allegedly kinder and gentler social policies are based on “sharing the wealth around”, which was condemned by the Church in Rerum Novarum and shown to be impractical by the Soviet Union in 1991. From a pro-life point of view, the Republican policies of low taxation and limited government seem to be compatible with showing respect for the dignity and worth of the people who actually create wealth by allowing them to keep a reasonably high percentage of the fruits of their own labour.
In my opinion there are lots of prolife issues and the Democrats are wrong about all of them, but Fr Morty O’Shea (Letters, March 20) is absolutely right about the paramount importance of stopping abortion. It would not be irresponsible to vote for an anti-abortion Democrat if you have no other anti-abortion candidates.
Yours faithfully, B J TOOLAN London N14