Opinion

August 31, 2012 (HLIWorldWatch.org) – Election season is upon us, and politics is on everyone’s mind. There is always a lot at stake come election time: the direction of the country, the economy, wars and foreign affairs. For Catholics and pro-life activists, this year’s presidential election is especially crucial if we are to protect and maintain our constitutionally-guaranteed religious liberties, and win the fight for life around the world.

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Politics in the United States has an enormous impact on the international effort to defend life from conception until natural death. For example, there is a direct connection between the person who sits in the White House and how much money the United States spends promoting abortion overseas.

One of the first things President Obama did when he took office in January 2009 was reverse the Bush administration policy that restricted federal funding for international organizations that promote or provide abortions. The Obama administration, in collusion with an anti-life Congress, has since been funneling an average of more than $45 million a year to the abortion-pushing United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The Bush administration did not fund UNFPA at all.

If $45 million sounds like a lot, consider the nearly $600 million spent in 2010 alone on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). USAID, under the Obama administration, pushes abortion and contraception around the world. These are just two examples of how your tax dollars are being spent, in the midst of serious domestic economic problems, to promote an anti-life agenda all over the world.

And this money has very real, very devastating effects – especially in the developing world. Human Life International (HLI) Kenya and other Kenyan pro-life organizations spent much of 2010 fighting against the ratification of a new constitution that would open the door for legalized abortion in this traditionally pro-life Eastern African nation. The old Kenyan constitution protected life from the moment of conception. Had the legalization of abortion not been so carefully hidden in its text, it is almost certain that the Kenyan people would have rejected the new constitution. According to a report from the U.S. Inspector General, the Obama administration spent over $23 million to support the new Kenyan constitution – money that went directly to pro-abortion groups engaged in lobbying and get-out-the-vote efforts. Additionally, Vice President Joe Biden and a string of congressmen visited Kenya in the months leading up to the vote, all in an effort to ensure that the referendum was adopted. The U.S. did not just tacitly support the legalization of abortion in Kenya, it aggressively lobbied for it. The United States bought abortion for Kenya with our tax dollars.

Unfortunately, the amount of money being spent to push the deadly sins of abortion and contraception on unsuspecting cultures is not our only concern. The current administration has also launched a direct assault on Catholics and our religious liberties. The now infamous mandate issued by the Department of Health and Human Services is a crystal clear example of the battle we are currently fighting. This mandate will force most Catholic institutions and all Catholic employers to provide health insurance coverage for contraception – which the Church defines as intrinsically evil!

We live in a country that was founded by settlers looking for religious freedom. But the Culture of Death has become so strongly entrenched in our nation that our leaders are poised to force us to violate our religious beliefs and to provide others with something we consider a great moral evil.

It should come as no surprise that anti-life activists have finally publicly set their sights on the Catholic Church. The Church has long been the loudest and often the only voice that cries out in opposition to the evils of the Culture of Death. Can you think of another institution, religious or otherwise, that has remained steadfast in its position on such life-issues as contraception, divorce and marriage? These aren’t merely political issues to discuss with our neighbors; they are true and absolute evils. And evil’s number one target will always be the Catholic Church, because the Church is the primary means of salvation for the world.

This evil has become so pervasive that society now considers contraception and abortion to be “healthcare” even though there are mounds of evidence that they can be very harmful to those who use them. Various forms of abortion and contraception have been linked to breast cancer(1), depression(2), and even death of the mother(3) (of course, in the case of abortion, there is always also the death of a child).

Even if our liberties were not under attack, we would have a moral obligation as Catholics to vote in November. We must always vote against the evils of the Culture of Death, and this year we must stand up for our own rights as well. Come Election Day, we are the voice of the Church.

Elisa Sumanski works at Human Life International (HLI), the world’s largest international pro-life and pro-family organization. A version of this article appeared in HLI’s official magazine FrontLines.

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1. According to the National Cancer Institute, taking the pill seems to increase one’s risk of breast cancer, cervical cancer, and ovarian cancer.

2. The Alfred Psychiatry Research Centre studied 60 women, and found that those taking the pill containing both estrogen and progesterone were almost twice as likely to be depressed as those who did not.

3. Complications from abortion and abortion-inducing drugs like RU486 have caused thousands of deaths. Conversely, in Chile maternal deaths dropped 70% after abortion was banned.