This year is a very important election year in our nation and states . This year more than any previous election year, voters are going to have to weigh their spiritual and moral values when pulling those levers to vote for candidates.

There are many issues in this year’s campaigns economics, foreign policy, and others. But for us as Christians there can be no other issue as critical as the issue of life for the unborn.

The sanctity and preservation of life must be a top priority for us in this year’s elections for the following reasons:

1. The “right to life” of the unborn is a primary right. Everything else—sustenance of life and a defense system for life against aggressors is subsequent and therefore secondary to the right of the unborn to survival, growth and development, the right to be what God intends them to be. 2. Issues such as hunger, defense and budgetary matters are serious and their solutions are debatable. The issue of abortion is serious and its solution in not debatable. Abortion is unmitigated sin and it must be stopped NOW. Over 15 million lives have been snuffed out since 1973—13 million more than the total number of casualties in all the wars in which the United States has been involved. We are a country which prides itself on championing the rights of minority groups. But as a nation we have not only ignored the rights of a 15 million minority group of unborn humans in the last eleven years, but we have legally denied them their right to live. 3. Only legislators can make and change laws. Therefore it is imperative for us as citizens to know where candidates stand on this basic issue so that we may vote accordingly. It is our God-given duty to choose only candidates who will uphold the Biblical teaching on the sanctity of unborn life (Psalm 139:13–16; Eccles. 11:5; Isaiah 44:2; Jeremiah 1:5; Exodus 21:22–24; Isaiah 49:1 ,5; Galatians 1:15–16; Proverbs 6:16–17; Amos 1:13–14; Deuteronomy 27:24–25; 30:19, 20a).

Twenty–nine pieces of pro-life legislation have come before the United States Congress these past four years. I urge you to trace the voting records of your U.S. senators and representatives on these issues and to make their records public by way of ads and letters to the editor in local newspapers. If you have trouble locating this data, please write to me and I will send it to you. If you are voting for candidates who have no previous record, try to interview them and ask them crucial questions. Do not be satisfied with an assurance from them that they are against abortion. They all say that they are. Ask if they will support legislation to outlaw abortion; ask if they will fight against funding for abortion; ask if they are pro-choice—that is, do they believe that it is a woman’s right to decide whether to carry or abort her baby. Their answers to these questions will show you where they really stand.

If you have been following the political conventions of this summer, you are aware of the tremendous differences in platforms and positions of candidates. Do you realize that the next president of the United States will appoint 2 to 4 judges to the Supreme Court? Do you know that two more pro-life judges on that U.S. Supreme Court will break the continuing deadlock of 6-3 which has decided against life for the past eleven years? When you pull those levers this fall, remember that you are voting for more than a man. You are voting for the future of this nation and of your own children and grandchildren. You are voting to uphold God’s law in a crooked and perverse world.

Mrs. Vanden Heuvel is the president of the Siouxland Christian Action Council, a local chapter of the national organization in Washington, D. C. Her address is 207 Kansas, NW, Orange City, Iowa 51041.