A critical election year for pro-life voters

Respect Life Month this year coincides with the final weeks of the most crucial election yet for the pro-life cause. For Catholics, the ballot decisions involve not only life or death, but also the integrity of our faith.

In 2016, voters rejected Hillary Clinton’s radical abortion agenda along with her hostility toward religious freedom in general and Catholicism in particular.

This time, the Democratic Party nominee, Joe Biden, calls himself a devout Catholic. Mainstream and some Catholic media have played up images of Biden with head bowed, holding rosary beads, or meeting with Pope Francis.

But pro-life advocates of all stripes learned a long time ago that one’s lapel sticker means nothing without action. Policy positions matter — and on life, the influence of Biden’s Catholicism is sadly lacking. A “devout Catholic” endorsing the expansion of abortion on demand simply does not compute.

Biden crossed a Rubicon in turning against the Hyde Amendment, which has saved more than 2.4 million lives by preventing taxpayer funding of abortion. Now he promises to stack the Supreme Court with pro-abortion justices, force taxpayers to pay for abortions, and make the Little Sisters of the Poor provide abortion-inducing drugs in their health plans.

Add Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), and you have the most pro-abortion presidential ticket in history.

Harris’s record is even worse than Hillary Clinton’s. As a prosecutor in California, she pursued criminal charges against David Daleiden, the brave citizen journalist whose undercover videos revealed Planned Parenthood’s trafficking in baby body parts — even going as far as to raid his home. In the Senate, she consistently voted in favor of late-term abortion and infanticide.

Harris brings strong anti-Catholic bias to the ticket. She refused to support the nomination of Brian Buescher, who now serves as a U.S. district judge in Nebraska, suggesting that Buescher’s Catholic faith and membership in the Knights of Columbus rendered him unqualified. Her interrogation was reminiscent of anti-Catholic movements of the 19th century: “Were you aware that the Knights of Columbus opposed a woman’s right to choose when you joined the organization?…Have you ever, in any way, assisted with or contributed to advocacy against women’s reproductive rights?”

Why would Biden pick a blatantly anti-Catholic running mate? Because Roe v. Wade is in trouble. Under President Trump, life is winning in America. He has done everything in his power to stop taxpayer-funded abortion and protect conscience rights, and his 200 judicial appointees fill one quarter of the federal bench. State legislators have taken note, enacting more and stronger pro-life laws each year.

Our choice is clear. Abortion is never merely one issue among many. It is a direct attack on the God-given dignity of the human person. We have a duty to oppose it — as Pope Francis says, “even if they persecute you, calumniate you, set traps for you, take you to court, or kill you.” Thankfully, every pro-life American has recourse to the ballot box to take a stand.

Susan B. Anthony List is working to reach seven million voters across all parties and demographics to educate them about the stark differences between the candidates on abortion. We know from field experience and data that the life issue is a potent motivator. The days when politicians could get by on camera-friendly displays of piety, without policies and actions to back them up, are over.

President Trump’s opportunity to fill a third Supreme Court vacancy now raises the stakes even higher. Pro-abortion Democrats promise revenge if they regain the White House and Senate. With the fate of countless unborn children in the balance, faithful Catholics mustn’t fail to make our voices heard.

MARJORIE DANNENFELSER is a member of the Northern Virginia chapter of Legatus, and the president of the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List. She serves as national co-chair of the Pro-Life Voices for Trump Coalition and is the author of  Life is Winning: Inside the Fight for Unborn Children and Their Mothers , published by Humanix Books.