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The news is still sinking in.

The people of Massachusetts ignited a political firestorm on Tuesday by electing Scott Brown to the seat vacated by the late Senator Kennedy.

CatholicVote did not endorse Brown, nor did we urge voters to elect him. Instead we fired back at Martha Coakley’s assault on Catholic doctors and nurses with phone calls to nearly 200,000 people in Massachusetts.

But many rightly are asking – if Scott Brown supports abortion, is CatholicVote happy that he was elected? Let me explain.

First, Senator-elect Scott Brown opposes using taxpayer funds for abortion, opposes partial-birth abortion, and supports other laws that would provide parents and women notice, counseling, and information prior to an abortion. But his opponent Martha Coakley was proudly 100% pro-abortion.

Scott Brown is certainly not an ideal candidate. After all, he supports Roe v. Wade! So the question must be asked — how should faithful Catholics, Christians, and dedicated activists that want to build a culture of life respond — how do we fit in? Read the rest of this entry »

Last night’s victory by Senator-elect Scott Brown (R) of Massachusetts showed the pragmatism of the pro-life movement. It is well known that Senator-elect Brown is not pro-life. However, he does at least support a ban on taxpayer funded abortions. In this case, the pro-life movement has backed the lesser of two evils. They have elected a man who has the ability to block a vote on a health care bill that would force you and I to pay for elective abortions across the country. We have placed our trust in Scott Brown and now he must come through for us.

There are some in the pro-life movement who disagree with this type of pragmatism. They stand for the ideal and for that I commend them. Those who take an all or nothing approach to candidates and legislation have a place in the movement. They are here to keep the rest of us pragmatists honest. But in the end politics is not religion. Politics is the domain of prudence, as Aristotle taught us so many years ago. When making political decisions, the pro-life movement must take the prudent course. We seek to deal with the political realities as they stand and in today’s political climate we needed someone to block the authorization of taxpayer funded abortions, a piece of legislation which would have cost so many more unborn their lives. We must be prudent because the stakes are so high. We must make political alliances with people who we not always agree with us on other political issues, because we are in the business of saving human lives.

But amidst our pragmatism we must remember that we are pro-lifers first. We must not forget the ideal. We must strive for the day when we no longer have to vote for candidates who are pro-life and against those who are pro-abortion. Until then we will chip away at abortion. We will pass a bill that will allow women to view ultrasounds and in so doing save some lives. We will protect the Hyde Amendment and other restrictions on taxpayer funded abortions and in so doing we will save some more lives. We will elect a Scott Brown who will help us where he agrees with us and we will re-elect a Bart Stupak who will stand in the face of his own party to protect our consciences and those who are weakest. Yet, we will never forget the ideal for which we enter into the public arena, the end of abortion and a society which truly embraces a culture of Life.

In conclusion, John Paul II has provided support for this type of pragmatism on Life issues. As he tells us in his landmark encyclical Evangelium Vitae:

When it is not possible to overturn or completely abrogate a pro-abortion law, an elected official, whose absolute personal opposition to procured abortion was well known, could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality. This does not in fact represent an illicit cooperation with an unjust law, but rather a legitimate and proper attempt to limit its evil aspects (No. 72).

The AP is calling it for Scott Brown. Martha Coakley has conceded the race. From ABC News:

In a dramatic upset that will end Democrats’ super majority in the Senate, Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley to claim the seat held by the late Ted Kennedy for more than 46 years.

Brown’s victory makes him the 41st Republican in the Senate, meaning Democrats will no longer be able to prevent a Republican filibuster — a major complication for President Obama’s agenda and health care legislation currently pending in Congress.

The Senate will still be heavily Democratic with a 59-41 edge. But a Democratic filibuster-proof majority no more.

The race for the open Senate seat in Massachusetts just got Catholic.

Politically, the Democrat Martha Coakley running for Ted Kennedy’s former Senate seat should have been a shoe-in, because the state is so blue. Recent polls, however, suggest that the Republican candidate Scott Brown has a slim chance of winning the race. 

To seal the deal, Democrats are pouring a huge amount of money into the race. The latest Coakley attack ad claims that Brown “even favors letting hospitals deny emergency contraception to rape victims.” (It also includes an image of Rush Limbaugh which makes him out to be a Nazi – but I’ll let it go.)

Scott Brown has responded by having his two daughters appear at a press conference today. Their message was that their father “didn’t want to force Catholic hospitals to supply “morning-after” pills.”

I’d be interested if AmP readers could provide more context on this debated issued. If he was attempting to protect the conscience rights of Catholic doctors and hospitals, I completely support his decision.

Granted, Brown does not support the repeal of Roe v. Wade, but in a campaign where both politicians are not pro-life, the Democrat Coakley is certainly the far less desirable of the candidates. Kathryn Lopez explains how Brown and Coakley are different on the issue:

There are prudential reasons for pro-lifers to support Brown. During a debate, Brown confronted Coakley: “Being supported by EMILY’s List [an organization that funds female politicians who support legal abortion], she will go down there as a social crusader and be obligated to file the bills that will have full [partial-birth] abortions and also lower the age of consent and also provide the federal funding.” As Brown made clear: “I’m not in favor of partial-birth abortion. I am not in favor of federal funding of abortion. I do not believe in lowering the age of consent to get abortions as Martha does.”

These facts, coupled with the (slim) possibility that Brown’s election could upset Democrat plans for pushing through their pro-abortion health care agenda, means Catholics in Massachusetts ought to seriously consider how they intend to vote on the 19th.

For more on this crucial race, and the decision that voters in Massachusetts face, see my post today on the APP blog.