Kari Lundgren, a PhD student in Pittsburgh and graduate of conservative Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, argues that Catholics should look past the years of empty Republican rhetoric about abortion and consider voting for Barack Obama.

She writes, "Why, in 12 years of a Republican-controlled Congress (1994-2006), 6 of which with a supposedly pro-life Republican President (2001-2007), has no human life amendment to outlaw abortion come up for a vote (The only formal vote on a Human Life Amendment occurred in the U.S. Senate in 1983 on the Hatch-Eagleton Human Life Federalism Amendment, and Eagleton was a Democrat)? Could it be that the GOP may have some motivating interest in keeping abortion legal indefinitely as an issue to galvanize voters at election time, winning Republicans easy votes?"

She continues, "And if you actually want to reduce abortions, you may do well to note the findings in the 2008 study by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, showing the role that economic factors have on the decision to abort, and also how addressing those factors actually reduces abortions."

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