"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!" - Pericles (430 B.C.)

The election of pro-life legislators is of vital concern to the pro-life movement. In order to participate effectively in the political process, Human Life PAC conducts candidate surveys for state legislative and U. S. Congressional races, to determine a candidate's position on pro-life issues.

The PAC has an endorsement policy which provides financial support to pro-life candidates, if available. Endorsement is based on a candidate's survey responses for support of pro-life legislation and by past voting records on life issues. The PAC may include other pertinent criteria.

PAC activities are funded by voluntary contributions and all funds are kept separate from other activities by Human Life of Washington. For more information, contact us through the Human Life state office in Bellevue, WA.

The Fallacy of the so-called "Single Issue Voters"
By Elenor K. Schoen

On the topic of "single issue" voting, let us make ourselves clear.

Respecting human life from conception to natural death is neither an "issue" nor singular.

This is not merely one social justice "issue" among other social justice "issues," like equal pay for equal work.

This is an underlying principle on which all rights and issues affecting human beings hinge.

This should be, therefore, the corrective lens through which we view our world. It should affect how we respond to all questions which will in any way touch human beings, no matter their stage in life, condition, or surrounding circumstances.

The Declaration of Independence states that: "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The writers of that document understood that the right to life is something that belongs to the individual by nature and cannot be taken away by the state. The state may violate that right, but not remove it. The right to life is listed first in that list of rights in the Declaration because it is a necessary first condition for all other rights. Without a right to life, all other rights are moot.

A state's primary duty is protecting the inalienable rights of its citizens. For a state to do otherwise undermines both its reason for being and its legitimacy.

Abortion is a direct attack on this underlying principle of the sanctity of human life enshrined in our laws. Legalizing this procedure has had the same resounding significance as legalizing slavery in the Supreme Court ruling on Dred Scott. Once a society undermines such a basic protection, all are threatened.

In 1973, the Court said in Roe v. Wade that definitions of what constituted "human life" would not be taken into consideration in their discussion on abortion.

The Supreme Court said:

"We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."[Of course, this was not a difficult question - the science was indisputable and had been known for decades, but the court chose to ignore this inconvenient fact - Dan]

And later concluded, though:

"All this, persuades us that the word 'person,' as used in the 14th amendment, does not include the unborn."

Without such a definition in place, they proceeded anyway to exclude one segment of the population. This left the field wide open to future infringements on the right to life of others.

When our state first passed a referendum legalizing abortion-on-demand in 1970, Human Life predicted correctly that with the acceptance of legalized abortion-on-demand in this country, euthanasia (assisted suicide) and infanticide (partial-birth abortion) would follow the same path towards legalization.

Now the list of such threats to life continues to grow with the onslaught of a new eugenics - cloning and embryonic stem cell research.

These are not "single" issues. They are part of a whole, misguided philosophy which brashly and foolishly believes that you can legally, morally, and ethically remove protection from a segment of society and expect that the society will remain intact as a functioning, nurturing, democratic entity. We came together as a nation to protect the rights of our citizens. We removed the primary right in 1973.

Does that mean that no other problems we face today are important except life issues?

It means that we have denied the most basic right of all to the most vulnerable and helpless among us. We have dehumanized the preborn child and lost our own humanity as individuals and as a country in the process. We now face the potential of the further extinction of an ever-widening group of our fellow citizenry which eventually will put everyone at-risk. Until we reinstate respect for all human life in this nation of ours, this is what we must ponder while viewing the voting ballot.