How are you going to handle the moral conflict involved in voting in the presidential election this year?
On the one hand, you have a choice that defends abortion as a morally neutral option, an option about which our Church teaches clearly that such a stance cannot be justified. The foundational moral issue here is that acceptance of violence to the innocent is intrinsically evil - always.
On the other hand, you have a choice that defends the life of the unborn but endorses a war that our Church has defined as not fitting within the circumstances of a “just war.”
Moral choices almost always fall into the category of neither black nor white, but some shade of gray. Maneuvering around the gray areas of morality takes a lot of skill and focus on discerning the will of the Lord. There are frequently extenuating circumstances that ameliorate the severity of some bad choices. However, our Church teaches that on a few issues, there are no circumstances that can soften blatant evil. Abortion is one such issue. The moral principle here is that killing innocent human life can never to be tolerated.
One of the greatest disappointments in my life is that membership in the political party I used to love (because of its stance on caring for the less fortunate) requires an acceptance of violence to the innocent.
So, my advice on making political choices is that as Catholics we cannot simply ditch what our Church is teaching about the sanctity of life in the womb. After all, Jesus did say about the Church, “Whoever hears you, hears me.”
If you are presently “pro-choice”, your Church is asking you to rethink your stance. Why? Because acceptance of abortion as a morally neutral option is a stance that cannot be justified. If you want to continue in your pro-choice stance, then realize that you are saying that you see an intrinsically evil option as morally neutral. Is this really what you want to say before God when you meet Him face to face?
What if, after all of this, you are still pro-choice? Where do you stand before God? That will be for God to decide; but in the meantime, it will be for you to do your most honest best to hear what the Church is saying with respect and then resolve the matter within your conscience. There are many issues that claim our moral outrage: war, poverty, and injustices of all kinds. But the greatest outrage is violence to the unborn.
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