Anti-abortion voters in Alabama must come to own conclusions

Out of respect for the many Americans whose anti-abortion political views are grounded in sincere convictions, I’d like to say that in my opinion, such voters are adults with moral agency, not pawns or children.

And in the wake of the recent revelations about Roy Moore, the Republican Senate candidate in Alabama, I think their leaders should take a moment to reflect on the risks of pandering to them. Moore continues to deny any misconduct in his interactions with teenage girls. But the accusations are credible, in part because some of Moore’s defenders have effectively corroborated some of them, by arguing that the behavior described is appropriate, or that the girls seduced him.

For many Alabamians, the decision at hand is therefore between “a choice of evils,” as Ramesh Ponnuru put it in a recent column for Bloomberg View. Moore appears to be a sexual predator, he explains, but his Democratic opponent, Doug Jones, is also profoundly flawed, from their perspective.

“If you take seriously the view that abortion is the unjust taking of human life, as many Alabamians do, then Jones’ position on it is a nearly insuperable barrier to voting for him,” Ponnuru notes.

Jones is pro-abortion rights, in other words. And although his position on the subject is not as extreme as Moore’s defenders have claimed, he has declined to equivocate about it.

“I’m not in favor of anything that is going to infringe on a woman’s right and her freedom to choose,” he told Chuck Todd in September, in an appearance on “Meet the Press.”

This explains why Moore’s supporters have been touting his anti-abortion beliefs in the run-up to the election, which will be held Dec. 12.

In a piece for Politico Magazine, Michael Wear, who worked on evangelical outreach for Barack Obama, warns that

despite the accusations against Moore, Jones’ views on the subject are a serious obstacle to his chances of winning, given that 58 perfect of Alabama voters believe that abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.

“The stakes of this election might justify an extraordinary step,” Wear writes. “He could pledge to vote ‘present’ on abortion-related legislation and amendments.” A justification

I was intrigued by this idea, because although I’ve never heard of a candidate making such a pledge, I can see why they might consider doing so even under normal circumstances, if there’s a clear disjunct between their personal views on a subject and those of their constituents.

I’m not sure how effective such a pledge would be in this case, though, because for voters who see restricting access to abortion as a top priority, and are willing to set all other considerations aside, a candidate who would vote for any such measures would still be more appealing than one who has merely pledged not to vote against them.

And I was saddened by Wear’s comment that Jones should, at least, commit to working with anti-abortion groups on common goals, such as supporting adoption, as a way to give such voters who would like to support him a justification for doing so — “something they can use as a response when their pro-life friends question their fidelity to the cause.”

I know what Wear means, but there is literally nothing Jones can do that would give anti-abortion voters a response that would prove persuasive to any friends who might question their decision to vote for him.

The premise of that question is that, from an anti-abortion perspective, voting for a pro-abortion rights candidate has to be justified. And any antiabortion voters still asking it in this context will never actually be satisfied. The litmus tests

It’s telling that Moore’s defenders are misrepresenting Jones’ position on the subject, as his wife Kayla did last week, when she said that Jones was for “full-term abortion,” among other things. There would be no reason for such hyperbole, if not for the fact that Moore himself has such a demonstrably spotty record when it comes to respecting the inherent worth and dignity of human life.

I can understand why the choice at hand is a difficult choice for voters in Alabama who seek a candidate “with pro-life views and at least average moral rectitude,” as Ponnuru puts it. He suggests that such voters might write in a candidate instead, which always strikes me as a reasonable decision for voters who aren’t satisfied with their options.

But Ponnuru’s column made me deeply uncomfortable, because I don’t agree that voters who may be considering doing so, in this case, are facing an “impossible” choice, although they may feel that way or that the political parties have “failed” them, if they do.

Jones’ pro-abortion rights views may be disqualifying, for some anti-abortion voters. But it would be unreasonable to argue that Democrats should have considered that before they nominated him. And it would be wrong to say that Jones’ views are inherently disqualifying, from an antiabortion perspective.

Many Republican leaders do say that, of course, about pro-abortion rights candidates — or they have, at least, done so in certain contexts. The party has cast abortion as an evil and an appropriate subject for litmus tests. Not ‘impossible’ choice

That’s why they are currently in such an awkward predicament. No one has accused Jones of sexual misconduct, or any of the other forms of misbehavior that have characterized Moore’s adventures in public life. But he is proabortion rights. Having pandered to voters about the moral imperative of supporting anti-abortion candidates, Republicans can’t fairly object that Moore and his defenders are doing the same. Nor can they easily explain why the behavior he’s been credibly accused of is as wrong, from a moral perspective, as Jones’ belief that women should have the right to seek an abortion under certain circumstances.

The voters who decide to rule Jones out on that basis are free to do so, of course, and some might consider that the right decision, from a moral perspective. But it does all anti-abortion voters a disservice to describe the choice between Moore and Jones as an “impossible” one, as if none of them could arrive at a different conclusion, or as if it isn’t clear that Republican leaders should hope they do.