How to vote like a person who cares for the vulnerable

The NZ election is now just over two weeks away.

It’s the one regular opportunity we are given to have a direct controlling stake in the future governance of our country, so how do we do that in a moral and meaningful way?

Here are some important principles that we think every person of goodwill should consider before casting their vote.

Be properly informed 

Make sure you know where the various parties and local candidates stand on the important issues pertaining to respect for human life BEFORE you cast your vote.

Never assume, and never take them at their word - always take the time to read the actual policies they are promoting, and to look at their previous voting record.

The proof is in the pudding, not the PR spin.

Vote according to principle

It has become increasingly common to hear people saying that unless you vote for one of the major parties you are ‘wasting your vote’.

But voting is not supposed to be a purely pragmatic exercise aimed solely at preventing a particular outcome - it is meant to be about endorsing what is good and true.

So when you cast a well informed vote according to principle your vote is never wasted, regardless of whether your preferred candidate or party crosses the line or not.

Focus on the non negotiables first

Policies that pertain to the human right to life and to protecting the lives of the vulnerable should always be the first and most important consideration when it comes to voting.

Another common mantra you'll hear trotted out at election time is ‘you shouldn’t be a single issue voter’, to which we say: ‘well, actually, that depends entirely on what the single issue is’!

If that single issue is the deliberate killing of innocent human beings, then yes, that should take priority over other issues that don’t involve such grave injustice against the human person.

Not all issues are morally equal, and it would be a serious mistake to think that a good economic or environmental policy somehow cancels out a policy which supports the deliberate killing of innocent human beings.

It is our strong suspicion that almost no one would be talking about ‘not being single issue voters’ if the policy debate was about introducing legalised slavery in New Zealand.

In that case, we think that most people would suddenly have no problem at all with voters prioritising that single issue above all others when it came to casting their vote.

Sometimes people speak of voting according to a ‘consistent ethic of life’, and we absolutely agree, which is precisely why voting for a candidate who endorses the deliberate killing of innocent human beings is NOT an option for people who support the consistent ethic of life.

To suggest that a candidate who supports the deliberate killing of unborn human beings somehow passes the consistent ethic of life test if they also support polices aimed at reducing poverty after a person is born or stopping environmental damage is illogical.

A consistent ethic of life requires us to be consistent in our pro-life ethic, and that means that we must NEVER tolerate any policy that does deliberate harm to any innocent human being.

Nor should we make the mistake of comparing non-negotiable moral issues, like the deliberate taking of innocent human life, with negotiable issues such as economic or housing policies.

The consistent ethic of life does not treat all issues as having the same moral weight, and so we would not be acting in accordance with that principle if we did this in our voting.

In an ideal world we would have candidates and parties who support the human right to life and who also endorse prudential polices when it comes to secondary quality of life issues.

But if we have to make a choice - which is increasingly the case - then policies pertaining to the human right to life must always come first.

What if there is no pro-life voting option?

It is becoming more and more common for people of goodwill in NZ to find themselves confronted with the problem of having no purely pro-life voting option available to them.

In such a situation you would then need to compare various ideological stances, policy proposals and voting records in order to try and determine which option might be less extreme in their position on abortion or other life issues.

Then it would be a matter of casting a vote in order to try and limit the harm that a more extreme ideological position or policy proposal would cause to the vulnerable.

Can I choose not to vote?

Yes, you can.

In New Zealand you have the legal right to abstain from voting, and if a person of goodwill genuinely believes that, in good conscience, they cannot give their vote to any candidate or party, then it would seem hard to make a moral case against such a decision.

The only proviso would be that, just like when it comes to voting, the decision to abstain would also have to be one that was also properly informed and considered first.