The conservative brand is in ruins. The nation is lurching left, all thanks to a conservative.

Disgusted with the supposed scion of our beliefs, a record amount of Christians and conservatives are considering voting for a Democrat. Many have already made up their mind to do so. However, an incredibly heated debate is at play within these right-of-center circles. How can Christians vote for a candidate whose record leaves no doubt about his unwavering support for abortion rights?

The most prohibitive barrier to entry in the Democratic Party is abortion, and a large group of voters who’d like to vote for Barack Obama are being left out of the Democratic tent because of it.

Young Christian voters like me were brought up believing a nation that honored God’s commandments would reap His blessings. With President Bush, social conservatives and the Christian right had found their voice, and, not surprisingly, it had a Southern accent.

But almost eight years after his controversial ascension, many a Christian has been left wondering: If Bush espoused godly government, where are the godly blessings that come with it? Where is the growing economy? Where is the robust standing of the American brand throughout the world?

The Bush administration has served as a rude awakening to many Christians and social conservatives that one cannot vote on values alone, and the Republican Party can no longer take the Christian vote for granted.

But in this Democratic fervor that has gripped so many Christians like myself, what of the issue of abortion?

A secular nation cannot make laws criminalizing what Christians consider to be sin. This is why I dismiss the conservative preoccupation with banning same-sex marriages or civil unions. It’s why I would not support a law that makes pre-marital sex or drunkenness illegal.

But we, as a society, regardless of our religious leanings or lack thereof, agree on one American truth: No one has a right to another’s life. It’s reflected in the 13th Amendment to our Constitution that abolished slavery. It’s reflected in the fundamental American belief that humans are endowed with certain inalienable rights. You can probably say them by heart: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Both parties are at fault for the lack of constructive dialog concerning life. It’s a contradiction that the so-called party of life is also the party of capital punishment. Republicans will have little moral ground to stand on when engaged in this debate until they give up capital punishment.

But it is also a contradiction that those who abhor ending the lives of those who commit heinous crimes offers their unwavering support to the right to end lives of those who have committed none. It’s a contradiction that a party so preoccupied with my rights so consistently refused to stand up for the rights of the unborn.

If a woman chooses to prohibit life from forming within her, that is her right. Contraceptives do not infringe upon the American truth of which I speak. But once there is no doubt that a life is at stake, no one has a right to that life.

A pro-choice voter will argue legislating what a woman can and can’t do with her own body is unjust. But laws govern what we do with our own bodies when those actions affect another’s. To argue that abortion is only about a woman’s choice to do with her own body as she sees fit is to refrain from addressing the issue honestly. There are two bodies, not one. There are two lives, and no one has a right to either.

Pro-choice proponents refuse to see abortion as more than just an issue about a woman’s body. In refusing to consider the unborn, they make their gravest mistake in framing this discussion.

I’m a Barack Obama guy, I really am. I know the Democratic ticket, on a whole, will be better for our country and our world than the Republican tandem of McCain-Palin. But Obama has made it clear: He will not pursue policies that make life a right to every American — unborn or otherwise. He will very probably appoint at least two Supreme Court judges who will maintain and perpetuate the legality of the Roe v. Wade decision. He is a Democrat. He is pro-choice.

I very much hope Obama will someday see the reason in coming to a consensus grounded in scientific and medical reason of when life begins, and affording that person his or her constitutional rights from that point. But if history is prologue, he will not. And those of us who value the sort of American sentiment expressed about life in the 13th Amendment may live to regret our votes should we choose to vote for him.

Gerald Cox ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in economics.