By Veronica Conklin
Choice: a marvelous gift. To vote is a great privilege won by brave souls who believed it worth struggling for. Life is a gift, and a choice. What we choose for others, we choose for ourselves. To choose death for another or to elect leaders who decide death for the innocent, is to participate in and bear responsibility for the resulting loss of life.
To choose death for another is to cause death in the heart for oneself; so it is with abortion. In this election the choice for life is clear. It is in the end a matter of hearts choosing life.
The choice for freedom is also clear. God’s laws free us. Only human laws have power to enslave. Where there is virtue – integrity, morality, justice, responsibility, respect for life…there is a framework for freedom. Where our leaders move contrary to moral virtue, such as forcing mandates against conscience and religious liberty, freedom is endangered. Perhaps some cannot see in our current options a choice for greatness. However, to exercise our privilege of voting for the cause of life and liberty is a worthy, indeed, a vital action for survival. To life and liberty!
Veronica Conklin
Mount Angel
