A new twist on single-issue voting

[KamaAina]

Once again, physician-assisted suicide is coming up to a vote in the Hawai'i Legislature.

http://starbulletin.com/2004/03/08/news/index5.html

Once again, disability rights advocates oppose the measure, fearing the "right to die" will become a "duty to die" for those with expensive long-term care needs, as well as the very idea of writing the prevailing "better dead than disabled" attitude into law.

One such advocate, a man roughly as progressive as myself, is so upset with his legislator's vote in favor of the measure that he has vowed never to vote for the legislator again.

The legislator in question is a Democrat.

I have no idea what my friend intends to do -- leave that portion of the ballot blank, vote Green or some other third party -- or the unthinkable: vote Repuke over this one issue.

This is how a "wedge issue" works (think abortion; the anti-choicers are also involved in opposition to PAS, creating one king-hell ethical dilemma for yours truly). The issue is made to assume such importance that voters turn against their own interests, broadly defined, and vote the issue: abortion, guns, even the Iraq war resolution vote in our own primaries.

I have not had a chance to discuss this whith my friend face-to-face. When I do, what should I tell him?