[E]very candidate of the party that votes is being forced this year to take a stand on abortion, and if the stand should be taken on law and not on the Good Book, the result can be very ugly indeed for the poor politician because abortion is against God’s law: “Thou shalt not kill.” Since this commandment is absolute any candidate who favors abortion must be defeated as a Satanist. On the other hand, any candidate who does not favor capital punishment must be defeated as permissive. In the land of the twice-born, the life of the fetus is sacred; the life of the adult is not.

Gore Vidal, ‘The Real Two-Party System’, in United States: Essays, 1952-1992, New York, 2001, p. 953