President Donald Trump, left and Joe Biden are running against each other in the 2020 presidential election. | File Photo
President Donald Trump, left and Joe Biden are running against each other in the 2020 presidential election. | File Photo
In the final weeks leading up to Election Day, every issue is a potential battleground and President Donald Trump issued an executive order stating the requirement of medical providers to provide emergency care for any infant born alive, even those born in the course of a failed abortion.
Some have speculated that the purpose of the order was to help boost Trump’s numbers among Catholic voters as he faces off against former Vice President Joe Biden, a practicing Catholic.
Biden has changed his stated stances on abortion repeatedly throughout his decades in politics, according to Harper's Bazaar, though he has most recently said he is against federal funding for abortions and late-term abortions, but that he wants the Roe v. Wade legal decisions codified into law.
Elizabeth Seymour
| Contributed photo
Trump has also moved on the spectrum of abortion views, having once described himself as “very pro-choice” in 1999, and taking strong stances and actions against abortion during his time running for the presidency in 2016 and in his time in office, according to On the Issues. His stated position on Roe v. Wade in 2016 was that the ruling should be overturned and the decision on how to regulate abortions should return to the individual states.
On the ground, how Catholics actually respond to the two candidates is yet to be seen.
Elizabeth Seymour, an 80-year-old parishioner at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Niagra, Wisconsin, told the Northeast Wisconsin News that she takes voting – and the role her faith plays in casting her vote – very seriously.
“My faith does, definitely, influence how I vote,” Seymour said. “As a practicing Catholic, I believe that abortion is the crime of the century.”
Seymour said that she believes every baby has a soul, and that soul should be protected.
“I believe life begins at conception and should be protected through until natural death,” Seymour said.
Seymour said that, regardless of the other issues in play, she could not support a candidate who is not opposed to abortion.
“All Catholics should care about this issue and vote according to their pro-life choices,” she said.
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