MANILA, Philippines - It is a subject matter that must be continually revisited. In the Philippines, even if it has consistently ended as a losing proposition, the issue of legislating a ?reproductive? health bill only emphasizes the need for the citizenry to arrive at a moral choice. In the current American presidential elections, the need for a moral choice becomes more indisputable as each of the candidates represents converse positions on significant issues that resonate with so much moral implications for society.

It is important to understand that inasmuch as every Catholic is expected to have moral judgment, the moral vote is not singularly a Catholic vote, for the simple reason that it is founded on moral truths that are not exclusive only to Catholic principles because these are shared by other religious persuasions. That is the universality of the moral vote. In that sense, there is thus no need for a Catholic vote when the citizenry is one that is capable of forming a moral judgment. Given that, anti-life advocates bark up the wrong tree each time they blame the Catholic Church for opposing the Siamese-twin issues of artificial contraception and abortion.

An example of how universal the moral vote can be is Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, staunchly pro-life and anti-abortion, but formerly a Catholic who had for some time shifted to the Pentecostal sect known as the Assembly of God.

In the local scenario, legislators courting popular support for the sagging and so-called reproductive health bill that we now know is not abortion-discriminating claim that they are Catholics. In the United States, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic vice-presidential candidate Joseph Biden, both Catholics, have publicly espoused their own personal justifications for abortion ?rights? that are neither here nor there. What happens therefore when we support legislators and candidates who are pro-abortion?

The promotion of the dignity of the human person is one of the pillars of any moral judgment. Human dignity requires that it be accorded the right to life which cannot be relativized to choice, conjecture, personal opinion or, worse, by ephemeral trends.

In forming judgments on social issues, it is important to know that there are intrinsic issues that cannot be morally justified under any circumstance. Among those in the top hierarchy of these intrinsic evils are legalized abortion, same-sex unions, repression of religious liberty and public policies promoting euthanasia, racism and destructive human embryonic stem cell research.

Surely there are other issues that require our prudent judgment, issues such as graft and corruption, poverty, anti-poor economics or the dismal state of our educational system, among others. Certainly these are issues that need our participation as citizens to find just solutions. These issues of prudent judgment, however, are not morally equivalent to issues involving intrinsic evil. A candidate or legislator who has the best solutions to such issues does not obliterate his or her participation in intrinsic evil such as the promotion of abortion rights. Legislators, for instance, such as Edcel Lagman, Risa Hontiveros-Baraquel or Panfilo Lacson, can strain their voices in justifying their positions with the ?right? answers, but they will always miss the point.

To get back to the question: Is it permissible for one to support a candidate or legislator who supports an intrinsic evil?

A yardstick document by the American Catholic bishops provides the answer. ?A. If both candidates running for office support ?abortion rights,? one would be forced to then look at the other important issues and through their vote try to limit the evil done; or, B. If another intrinsic evil outweighs the evil of abortion. While this is sound moral reasoning, there are no ?truly grave moral? or ?proportionate? reasons, singularly or combined, that could outweigh the millions of innocent human lives that are directly killed by legal abortion each year.?

?To vote for a candidate who supports the intrinsic evil of abortion or ?abortion rights? when there is a morally acceptable alternative would be to cooperate in the evil?and, therefore, morally impermissible.?

These bring to the fore serious implications. Firstly, there really is no such thing as a ?Catholic vote? simply on the basis of what the Pope and the bishops say. Having a moral conscience is one that must always preclude a Catholic or Islamic or Jewish vote. This brings us to the second point. It is very clear that many of our anti-life advocates, no matter how many times they invoke that favorite word ?conscience,? may simply be guided by a so-called conscience that is not formed at all according to moral judgment. Likewise, morality cannot be measured by the majority numbers of poll surveys.

Notice, for example, that the Ateneo de Manila faculty statement preeminently used the phrase that ?Catholics can support the RH bill in good conscience? and which has since been rightly disowned by the university president Fr. Bienvenido Nebres, SJ. But a university that claims to be Catholic can never disassociate itself from its mandate to form conscience. It must be a big wonder how that can be achieved if it has teaching faculty who cannot form moral conscience. At best, it can only produce relativized Catholics whose spines will bend according to the momentary relativities of the times.

Clearly, the moral vote cannot be underemphasized in the US presidential elections where the brilliant éclat of Barack Obama must be judged according to his stance for abortion ?rights.? Is it eclipsed by the looming specter of racism?another intrinsic evil?that we had thought the United States had long ago discarded but which now appears to be a tiger in its basement? How does Obama?s support for abortion ?rights? fare against the hawkish John McCain?s lethal penchant for war and aggression?

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Comments to monta@cu-cdo.edu.ph