A canon lawyer has joined the Kmiec crusade to ensure that Catholics feel good about voting for Obama. This piece in the National Catholic Reporter was written by Nicholas Cafardi, a civil and canon lawyer, and former dean at Duquesne University School of Law about how he is Catholic, anti-abortion yet still supporting Obama.

Start tearing your hair out now.

I believe that abortion is an unspeakable evil, yet I support Sen. Barack Obama, who is pro-choice. I do not support him because he is pro-choice, but in spite of it. Is that a proper moral choice for a committed Catholic?

As one of the inaugural members of the U.S. bishops’ National Review Board on clergy sexual abuse, and as a canon lawyer, I answer with a resounding yes.

Despite what some Republicans would like Catholics to believe, the list of what the church calls “intrinsically evil acts” does not begin and end with abortion. In fact, there are many intrinsically evil acts, and a committed Catholic must consider all of them in deciding how to vote.

Last November, the U.S. bishops released “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” a 30-page document that provides several examples of intrinsically evil acts: abortion, euthanasia, embryonic stem-cell research, torture, racism, and targeting noncombatants in acts of war.

Obama’s support for abortion rights has led some to the conclusion that no Catholic can vote for him. That’s a mistake. While I have never swayed in my conviction that abortion is an unspeakable evil, I believe that we have lost the abortion battle — permanently. A vote for Sen. John McCain does not guarantee the end of abortion in America. Not even close.

OK. Is all your hair pulled out yet. Well, nobody told me that abortion battle was over. Man, this guy declares defeat faster than Obama in Iraq.

After years of hard work to get judges on the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe V. Wade and getting it possibly to just needing one more justice, we find out that it was all for nothing.

He says that even if Roe is overturned and some states restrict abortion, people will travel to other states which don’t restrict abortion. Let’s follow the logic. So, according to him we should probably make all drugs legal as well because as long as people can travel they’re going to get drugs.

Pope Benedict and the bishops have made it crystal clear that abortion is not a single issue to be compared and contrasted with other issues like immigration or the War on Terror.

He continues:

There is a difference between being pro-choice and being pro-abortion. Obama supports government action that would reduce the number of abortions, and has consistently said that “we should be doing everything we can to avoid unwanted pregnancies that might even lead somebody to consider having an abortion.” He favors a “comprehensive approach where … we are teaching the sacredness of sexuality to our children.” And he wants to ensure that adoption is an option for women who might otherwise choose abortion.

Obama worked all of that into his party’s platform this year. By contrast, Republicans actually removed abortion-reduction language from their platform.

Yeah. They don’t talk as much as reducing because they talk about “the sanctity and dignity of innocent human life.”

I’m the first to say I’m not crazy about McCain. But Obama would deliver a hard blow to the pro-life movement as he may get to appoint two justices in just four years. But no Mr. Cafardi I would not say that we lost the battle even then. There’s something you obviously don’t understand. When it comes to the sanctity of life we won’t stop. Ten years. Twenty years. A lifetime. Two lifetimes. We won’t stop advocating our position for life. We won’t declare defeat if defeat means acquiescence in the face on unspeakable evil. Ever. Because we know that if there is no right to life, no other right truly exists.