There is an alarming number of Catholic and pro-life leaders and influencers who are propagating a dangerous, even evil idea. This idea is that in 2008, we do not have a suitable candidate for truly pro-life voters to choose in November.

Not voting, or voting write-in candidates, is the popular suggestion.

When I was in attendance at the Men and Abortion conference in Chicago a few weeks ago,   Jason Jones   addressed the audience, and said “When you live in a constitutional democracy, your civic duty becomes your religious duty. We are the sovereigns.” In other words, these influential pro-life and Catholic individuals are asking us to abdicate the throne.

First, though, it should be pointed out that the most convincing argument against voting for John McCain was his acceptance of Embryonic Stem Cell Research. That has now been answered by his announcement that he will maintain the policy of George W. Bush and the nomination of Gov. Sarah Palin, who is more courageously pro-life than I would have ever hoped to see in this election on a major ticket. Third, by the very fact these two preceding events have taken place, it confirms that John McCain is a candidate in which pro-life dialog can take place and have an effect. Therefore, this argument that he is not ‘pro-life’ enough seems to no longer hold water.

But even if these events had not taken place, if we were faced with the two parties putting forth such terrible options - would it be justified to cast a vote for a third-party candidate, especially one who has not gotten on the ballot in all 50 states?

The cause for abortion is one of the ultimate issues of good versus evil in our time. For many of us, it may be the greatest of our lives. Therefore it is our duty to take part in the battle.

Those who would have you believe there is no choice but a third-party candidate have cited that one cannot take part in evil. That is true. But we live in a time so compromised our choices have been severely limited. The blood of two generations is literally running in our sewers. The tyranny of the two party system has given us no perfect solution. However, there is a great difference between those candidates put forth by the parties.

The faults of John McCain have been mentioned, and of course one can add concern over his party’s integral part in the war in the middle east. But on the other hand… in Barak Hussein Obama… we have perhaps the personification of a candidate on the anti-Catholic, pro-abortion platform.

Obama not only supports abortion, but he has not opposed the rights of a child who survives an abortion - Obama supports a mother’s right to even kill her already-born children. As a Democrat, it is practically assured that he will revoke the Mexico City Policy, which will allow our tax dollars to fund abortions in foreign countries. There is indeed a great many more lives that will be lost if Obama is elected than if McCain is elected. Of course, if you have even read this article to this point, we are probably in agreement that under no circumstances do we want Obama to be elected.

If we cannot choose either candidate because we should not participate in evil, then we have no choice? That is what a fool will tell you. If you do nothing, or you piddle your precious vote away on a third-party candidate who has no chance, than you may very well commit a graver sin of omission, if your action or inaction brings about the greatest evil. As Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Let’s say that someone tells you they are about to kill one man, or three. It is your choice. But if you do not choose, they will kill the three, You have in fact three choices. If you refuse to choose, the third option, you would be responsible for the death of two more people than if you had chosen the lesser evil.

The third parties might still seem to be an option. However, never in our history has a candidate from a third party won, and for good reason.   Jerry Freisa explains :

On four occasions in US history, the candidate with the most popular votes did not win the presidency. This is a feature of a republican form of government, a government that is intended to “check” popular participation and “leveling” or democratic impulses. The mechanism by which this is done is the Electoral College. The Electoral College also insures that the number of parties seriously competing for the presidency will always be and only be two.

Each State’s allotment of electors is equal to the number of House members to which it is entitled plus two Senators (with the District of Columbia getting three). But here is the key element for our purposes: in order to win the presidency, a candidate must win a majority of electors.

By requiring that a candidate win a majority, the Electoral College guarantees that third parties must do one of three things. Let’s assume a third party arises and is incredibly strong (the Perot candidacy that for a time was pushing 20 percent nationally), but has no realistic chance of wining a majority of electors straight out. Its first choice is to press forward, win a significant percentage of electors and deny either of the two major parties a majority victory. In this case, the election would be decided by the House of Representatives, already dominated by the major parties.   Option 1: third party looses everything.

The second option, again assuming a strong third party, is to coalesce with one of the major parties in order to get something. Arguably the most powerful progressive political party was the People’s Party during the late 19th century. In 1896, they had anywhere from 25 to 45 percent strength in twenty-odd states. Clearly unable to win the presidency as a third party, they felt compelled to coalesce with the Democrats and saw their more radical labor and socialist elements purged in a losing effort. Well, there you are.   Option 2 puts you back inside one of the major parties.

The third option arises when a third party is not that strong, say a Nadar candidacy of 2000. We know what happens there. A weak third party, by taking votes away from the party closest to it ideologically will, in effect, help elect the major party most unlike themselves.   Option 3: help the other guys win.

The third option is perhaps the most likely for any “more pro-life than McCain” party, and in effect it hands Obama the presidency. In other words, if the sun rises on November 5, 2008 and Obama is elected, the blood will be on the hands not only of those who voted for him or did not vote, but for those who voted for someone other than McCain.

All three of these scenarios depict a strong third party, which is not a factor in the 2008 election. Even if they were, they would pretty much have to be polling more than at least one party to be a contender, and even then the odds are decidedly stacked against them.   If you need a review of how the electoral college works, Wikipedia is actually decent for this .

The Catholic Voter’s Guide put out by Catholic Answers addresses this as well:

Where an ideal candidate, law, or prgram is not on the table, we are to choose the best option, the one that promotes the greatest good and entailes the least evil. Not voting may sometimes be the only moral course of action, but we must consider whether not voting actually promotes good and limits evil in a specific instance.

Is not voting, or voting for a third party candidate, who with less than 60 days to election day has not got a prayer, the best choice to limiting evil? No, for grave evil will befall us and our children if Obama is elected.

Disclaimer: I am an independent voter, with no particular affection for the Republican party. Like Sen. Clinton, whose support of Obama is more or less due to the fact that he is not McCain, my support for McCain is because he is not Obama, and the electoral college has left us with only 2 choices. To vote outside of thsose two is to "do nothing" and allow evil to triumph.

Paul Nowak is a freelance writer and author. His homepage is www.DyingLight.com.