I’m just going to say it: I am not excited to vote. It sucks that I even have to say that, considering that being able to vote was the thing I was most excited about when becoming an adult. But I am literally depressed at the thought of Election Day and I am angry at both political parties for giving me and the rest of the American people two of the most scandal-ridden, unlikeable, unqualified and untrustworthy nominees to choose from in history. And I know I’m not alone in feeling this way considering that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are the two most unpopular major party nominees in recent history, but I do think a little differently than most people in terms of my exact political ideology.
See, I’m not a Democrat. And ever since the Republican Party has become the Party of Trump, I don’t feel comfortable self-identifying as a Republican either. So over the last couple months or so, I’ve boiled my political ideology down to one thing: pro-life.
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Now, I know what most of you are probably thinking, “You’re uninformed! A vote on one issue is a wasted vote!” So why am I a so-called “single-issue voter”? And why on the issue of life? Well, first I should clarify that when I say I’m pro-life, I don’t just mean on abortion. No, the issue of life goes into abortion as well as euthanasia, assisted suicide and the death penalty. It is my firm and convicted belief that any civilized society must work to protect the life of all of its citizens from conception until natural death, and that those four things (abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the death penalty) have no place in any society that wants to call itself civilized. Those four things are directly contrary to the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness enshrined in our Declaration of Independence. And yet, we continue to tolerate them and make excuses for them that tip-toe around what they really are: unconscionable, undemocratic and uncivilized.
So yes, I have every right to vote on one issue, and especially since my one issue (life) should be the absolute groundwork to any civilized society. I remember a scene in the movie "Selma" when Martin Luther King, Jr. is meeting with President Lyndon Johnson at the White House and Johnson tells him off saying, “You’ve got one issue. I’ve got a hundred and one.” But when watching that film, the viewer sides with MLK because we realize how big and important his “one issue” was.
I don’t feel much different about my issue. I realize the humanity of the unborn child and the violence that is abortion, along with the painful effect it has on the mother of said child. I realize how euthanasia denies the right of the elderly and other patients who can’t speak for themselves to die a natural death. I realize the right of a doctor to deny a patient the right to kill him or herself if it goes against their moral standing. And I realize how the death penalty is a denial of human dignity and hurts all those affected by it.
But yet, even though the United States of America claims to be a civilized society, we still find ways to justify all of these forms of killing. With abortion, for example, people will ignore the basic science of embryology and refer to the fetus as a “clump of cells,” or they’ll completely dodge the question, in regards to the humanity of the unborn child or the painful effect it has on the woman and just play up the whole “woman’s right to choose” talking point.
This ignorance was no more present than at this year’s Democratic National Convention when NARAL President Ilyse Hogue got up at the podium and bragged about the fact that she had had an abortion to a roaring applause. The fact that Democrats think it’s okay to cheer and celebrate something that takes a human life and has brought so much pain upon so many people is sickening, and it’s no different than white southerners in the 1800s celebrating slavery and finding joy in offing slaves since, to them, slaves were “their property” and abusing/raping/killing them was “their choice.”
So I find it invigorating when politicians running for office make the issue of life prominent in their campaign. I find it even more special when a pro-life Democrat runs for office without being afraid of backlash from the abortion lobby. Which is why this election is so upsetting for me, as my two choices are Donald Trump, a narcissistic bully who brings out the worst in people and has been pro-choice his whole life until running for office, and Hillary Clinton, a BFF of the abortion lobby who literally wants to force taxpayers to fund abortions through Medicaid by repealing the common-sense Hyde Amendment.
The only thing I take comfort in this election is that Mike Pence, the governor of my home state and Trump’s running mate, is as solid a pro-life advocate as they come in politics. And if he were at the top of the ticket, I would campaign and vote for that ticket in a heartbeat. However, that is not the case, as Trump somehow managed to sucker in pro-life people and people of faith to support him during the primaries even though he doesn’t remotely represent any Christian or pro-life values (unlike his challengers Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, etc.).
But despite this, I still have hope that pro-life groups across the country (including my own Students for Life group at DePaul) can work to change the culture and elect state and federal officials who will advocate for life in the Senate, House, and in their states.
As someone with morals and the right to vote, I refuse to stand idly by and let politicians put the interests of the abortion lobby above the interests of millions of women and children who are harmed by this horrific act of violence and are taken advantage of by an industry that views them as dollar signs.
This is an absolute injustice, and as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” And so I plan to use my “single-issue” vote in November to work towards ending this injustice, and regardless of what happens, I will never feel as if it’s a wasted vote.
