It is natural, in fact necessary, therefore, to ask the question: What will the legacy of this generation be? How will our first democratic participation be remembered? What do we want this generation to represent? What do we want this country to represent?
At this point, this column could devolve into simple policy contrast and political analysis. I could pontificate on healthcare and taxes, Iraq and Afghanistan, immigration and trade. And it would be terribly boring and superfluous, as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal can certainly fulfill that obligation far better than I.
In this space, I would like to focus on the more fundamental issues at stake today, those social and cultural touchstones that define our nation and our people. Topics such as tax and trade policy are important and reflective of social values, but they are to some extent ephemeral and politically fickle. Today, the question to consider when the curtain is drawn cannot be answered by a policy task force or an economic data sheet. It is the aggregate question: What do we want this generation, this nation, this civilization to be?
The contrast is stark. The two tickets represent distinct visions of the American promise and the human condition.
In an unscripted moment during the campaign, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) explained his support for abortion in these terms: "If they [his daughters] make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD." In this moment of candor, Obama betrayed a remarkable, disturbing moral coldness toward humanity's most vulnerable and innocent. In his worldview, a fetus is the moral equivalent of herpes and gonorrhea. An unborn child is not dissimilar to an illness to be cured, a tumor to be removed, a boil to be lanced. The baby is not even allowed the benefit of being an amoral entity; he/she is in fact an immoral imposition, an unjust aggressor, a "punishment" that, even when posing no threat to the health of his/her mother, is automatically considered a negative experience to be eliminated at the cost of his/her life. This is not simply a "pro-choice" position on abortion; it is a moral and philosophical judgment of human dignity. Is this who we are?
Consider Obama's actions in the Illinois State Senate. After the Attorney General declared that current law did not protect infants who survive abortion attempts, Obama fought to kill legislation designed to rectify this injustice. And so he prioritized his radical ideology above even the minimal human compassion necessary to care for those infants who survive abortions, to grant them even minimal dignity. Have we, as a society and a civilization, "progressed" so far that we no longer recognize even the most basic values of compassion and empathy? Is this who we are?
We as a generation of voters must remember that this concept of basic human dignity cannot be considered simply one of many issues in an election. It is the moral cornerstone of our society and every bit as fundamental and salient as it was nearly 150 years ago. The proliferation of slavery was not just a subject of campaign rhetoric in 1860, but a referendum on our civilization that challenged our ancestors to decide the direction of American society just as we are challenged today. Through his words and actions, Obama has demonstrated that he would deny the most vulnerable in our society the dignity on which our civilization is founded.
There is another way, another representation of our national culture, to be found in this election. Rather than being denigrated as some sort of perverse "punishment" for a mistake, human life, in all its forms and developmental stages, can be seen as a blessing worthy of respect and dignity equal to that enjoyed by the rest of the human family. For if today we judge one class of humanity as imperfect or unsound and therefore unworthy of dignity, tomorrow we may be the subject of that same judgment.
What will the legacy of this generation be? Will we use our votes, our democratic responsibility, on a political fad and, in so doing, turn our backs on the value of life and the universality of human dignity? Will this generation blaze a trail toward a "new politics" where ideology trumps empathy for the weakest and most vulnerable among us?
I fear that we will. I hope and pray that we do not.
Brandon McGinley is a politics major from Pittsburgh, Pa. He can be reached at bmcginle@princeton.edu.
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