Nancy Pelosi: As a Catholic Mother of Five, I Refuse to Directly Answer Questions about Abortion

A reporter from CNS News today asked Nancy Pelosi: “Is an unborn child 20 weeks into pregnancy a human being?”

That’s not a question Pelosi is interested in addressing for obvious reasons, so she didn’t answer it. 

So the reporter asked again, “When it comes to the matter of whether or not an unborn child is a human being at 20 weeks gestation, what is your personal take on it? If it is not a human being, then what do you believe it is?”

That incensed her. “You know it is really interesting that you would come to these meetings to talk about it,” she replied. The nerve of a reporter coming to a press conference to talk to a member of Congress about the central point of a bill being considered in the House.

She continued: “As a mother of five, in six years, I have great standing on this issue, great understanding of it, more than my colleagues. In fact, one day many years ago, perhaps before you were born, when I was a new member of Congress, as a Catholic and a mom of five, opposing some of the initiatives similar to what — in the same vein as — what we have today, one of the Republicans stood up and said: Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows more about having babies than the pope. Yeah, Yeah. That would be true.”

Pelosi has relayed this story with variations before to the press. Back in 2003, after the partial-birth abortion ban was signed into law, she told it this way:

“They told me once the pope knew more about having a baby than I did,” she said. “I said, ‘That’s really interesting. I’d like to talk to him about it.’

“I love the pope. I have the highest regard for the pope. . . . But I don’t think that a lot of guys should be calling the shots.”

Clearly Pelosi, and some in the media (headline at the Washington Post: “Does Nancy Pelosi think she knows more about having babies than the Pope? You bet she does.”), consider this to be a clever rejoinder.

Actually, no one doubts that Nancy Pelosi has more direct knowledge of what it’s like to bear children than the pope does. What some people find hard to comprehend is how “as a mother,” she’s totally fine with letting unborn children be killed right up to the point of exiting the birth canal, and how as a “devout Catholic” she has no problem publicly disregarding clear and longstanding Church teaching on the issue while also claiming that the professed devoutness of her Catholicism somehow gives her more credibility to do so.