Just kidding.

I have good friends whom I know to be thoughtful, intelligent, caring, and passionately pro-life people who have all of the following plans in November. In random order (I literally used a list randomizer):

• Planning to vote for Harris. They see the way Trump handled the transition of power in 2021, and they are deeply concerned about how he would use power and what he might be willing to do to hold onto it. They also abhor the ways Trump has spoken about immigrants, women, and other groups of people. They see that Trump has promised to veto a federal abortion ban and explicitly opposed even some state-level abortion restrictions. They’re deeply concerned that if pro-lifers vote for Trump en masse, we’ll be communicating that Republicans get the pro-life vote no matter what they do, and cementing the GOP as a pro-choice party.
• Planning to vote for Trump. They see that Harris is making legal abortion at any time for any reason the center of her campaign. They may think many of Trump’s actions and his recent statements about abortion are really, really bad, but they would rather have a president like Trump who has said he would veto federal abortion restrictions than a president like Harris who has said she’ll do everything in her power to make sure there can’t be abortion restrictions even at a state level. Some also think that when both presidential candidates are horrible, we should vote based on the broader worldview of the parties, and they see the Republican party more broadly as in line with their values.
• Planning to vote for Peter Sonski (American Solidarity Party), or another pro-life third-party candidate. They see that their single vote is statistically certain not to determine whether Trump or Harris wins. They think that they still have strong reasons to vote, but they also think that, because their vote isn’t going to determine who wins, they do not have strong reasons to restrict their vote to one of the two major party candidates, especially when they detest the directions both parties are going to the point that they think it would be morally wrong for them to vote for either. With the current Republican party’s pro-choice party platform and full-throttled support for Trump, they don’t see either major party as in line with their values. They believe voting for a third party sends that message of active rejection to the major parties more strongly than not voting.

Sidenote: Regardless of who you vote for, you should check out Sonski’s fantastic work winsomely advocating for pro-life policies. He’s taken ERI’s Equipped for Life course and sought us out for individual advanced messaging consulting, and he’s one of the most intentional, clear, and effective pro-life politicians out there at communicating about abortion. We at ERI have diverse views about who to vote for, but we’re unanimous that Sonski is awesome.¹

• Planning not to vote in the presidential election. They see that their single vote is statistically certain not to determine whether Trump or Harris wins the election. They don’t believe we have a duty to vote, and they view both Trump and Harris as too morally evil to vote for without compromising oneself. And even in races where there are morally acceptable candidates, they also think it’s more appropriate not to vote unless you’re sufficiently read up on what you’re voting about to understand the best arguments on both sides, instead of letting your vote be determined by the one side you happen to have heard.

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

I’m not saying all of those are equal, or that it doesn’t matter and they’re all fine. You almost certainly have very strong disagreements with one or more of those views. I also have very strong disagreements with one or more of those views. But I’m not going to tell you which ones—that’s not the point of this article. What I want to do here is talk not about who to vote for, but about how to vote: both how to think about your own choice, and how to think about people who make different choices.

How abortion should figure into how you vote

I think there are two extremes here that are important to avoid. One is “Yeah, abortion is important, but it’s one issue among a whole bunch of other issues, so it doesn’t need to play a big role in how I think about voting.” The other is “Abortion is the only issue; nothing else matters at all when abortion is on the table. So I have to vote based solely on abortion and consider no other factors.” Both of those extremes are wrong. Abortion is a widespread, legal, horrific human rights violation—it’s in a whole other category. And it’s not the only thing that matters. Where exactly we should fall on the spectrum between those two extremes and what that means about who to vote for is something smart, thoughtful pro-lifers can disagree and dialogue about. But start from the common ground of rejecting both extremes.

Don’t brush past reasons for making a different choice

Whatever voting choice you make, don’t forget, minimize, or dismiss the reasons against making that choice. Some of the things that people voting differently from you say will be things you disagree with. But others will actually be common ground—but common ground that feels like it creates tension with the voting choice you’re making, and thus is tempting to brush past. Don’t. If you’re voting for Trump, do it looking full in the face of the worst things he’s said and done and why they matter. If you’re voting for Harris, do it looking full in the face of the worst things she’s said and done and why they matter. Whatever your plan in November, look full in the face of the best arguments against your plan, and especially at anything the people making those arguments say that you agree with but feel a pull to brush past.

Allowing yourself to fully contemplate the common ground you’re tempted to brush past will help you more robustly develop your own view, more clearly understand other people’s views, and fight confirmation bias in ways that are deeply good for your mind and heart.

How to think about fellow pro-lifers who vote differently

I’m going to say the same things about how to disagree with fellow pro-lifers who vote differently that I say about how to disagree with pro-choice people. (Turns out, the principles of good dialogue aren’t limited to abortion.)

• Don’t feel like you have to disagree less strongly or look for a middle ground position: let your beliefs and your amount of confidence in them follow the evidence wherever it leads.
• Do disagree openmindedly. Have the approach, “I want to believe the truth whatever it is, not believe what I currently believe whether it’s the truth or not,” so that genuinely considering your fellow pro-lifer’s arguments won’t feel like a threat to you, and you can both view yourselves as on the same team, pursuing truth together through dialogue.
• Do engage kindly. Never forget that you’re dialoguing with a human being—quite possibly a sad and scared human being—not just an argument. Notice their face, their body language, and their heart. Treat the pro-lifer you disagree with like they matter more than any belief about the election matters, because they do.

Someone might object, “You keep calling these people ‘fellow pro-lifers.’ But anyone who doesn’t vote for X isn’t really pro-life!” If that’s you, then be careful. Who we’re willing to think of as in our movement and who we think is out says a lot about what our movement is all about. If you have to vote for candidate X to count as part of the pro-life movement, then our movement isn’t ultimately about fighting to save the lives of babies; it’s about supporting candidate X.

Your voting choice is important. But mathematically, its ability to change the outcome of the election is non-existent. You have much more ability to positively influence this country by how you vote, and how you think of and treat people who vote differently, than by who you vote for. Use it well.

¹_{To clarify, this isn’t an endorsement of Sonski’s presidential campaign, both because ERI staff have diverse views about who to vote for and because we’re a 501c3 and don’t endorse political candidates. And in the interest of full disclosure, we’ve provided paid services to Sonski, in the form of both the Equipped for Life course and individual consulting. But we’re saying he’s awesome because he’s awesome, not because he’s bought our stuff.}

The post If You Don’t Vote For THIS CANDIDATE, You’re Not Really Pro-Life originally appeared at the Equal Rights Institute blog. Subscribe to our email list with the form below and get a FREE gift. Click here to learn more about our pro-life apologetics course, “Equipped for Life: A Fresh Approach to Conversations About Abortion.” 

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