Abortion

I understand that abortion is a life or death issue for many people. Literally. The idea of murdering human beings, particularly pure innocent human beings that have never done anything wrong, is unforgivable to them. Overturning Roe vs. Wade is not just important. It is critical.

However, an issue of perhaps even greater importance is human death in general. The number of unborn people that die every day pales in comparison to the number of born people who die each day. In fact, it's highly likely that I will die and so will you. Wouldn't we want our president to oppose human death? Why don't we ask the candidates where they stand on this issue?

The answer is, simply, the President of the United States does not have the power to bring an end to human death. It's not that we don't care about this issue. It's just that, when voting for president, this issue is completely irrelevant.

I claim that the same is true for the issue of abortion. Regardless of how critically important this issue is, when voting for president, it is practially completely irrelevant. The president cannot make abortion illegal. We have had several pro-life presidents since Roe vs. Wade. And yet, abortion is still legal.

Okay. The president might be able to indirectly have an effect on the legality of abortion, because he has the power to appoint Supreme Court justices. But he only has that power when there is an opening in the Supreme Court, which rarely happens. Most presidents don't get to appoint any Supreme Court justices, so they have as much power over abortion as they do over human death.

And even if the President can make an appointment... even if he can make seven appointments, the likelihood of abortion is still very small. Roe vs. Wade set a prescedent, and prescedent is very important to judges. To overturn the ruling of any court is a big deal. But to overturn a ruling of the Supreme Court is practically unthinkable to someone who is qualified for the occupation of judge. There would need to be clear evidence that was not available in the prior ruling, and a very strong report explaining why the previous ruling was an error must be written. So I claim that the Supreme Court has very little power over the issue of abortion.

In summary, given how irrelevant abortion is to the presidency, it makes no sense to vote based on that issue. And to vote based solely on that issue is a terrible mistake.