Pelosi Touts ‘Devout’ Catholicism and Big Family, Says Abortion about ‘Fairness’ for Poor Women

During a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) appealed to her “devout” Catholic faith and large family size to claim that taxpayer-funded abortion is matter of fairness for underprivileged women.

“Because it’s an issue of health of many women in America, especially those in lower income situations in different states, and it is something that has been a priority for many of us for a long time. As a devout Catholic and mother of five in six years, I feel that God blessed my husband and me with our beautiful family,” Pelosi commented.

“But it’s not up to me to dictate that’s what other people should do and it’s an issue of fairness and justice for poor women in our country,” she added.

The House speaker revealed her opinion on abortion in a similar way at a June briefing, when she dodged a reporter’s question about whether an unborn baby that is 15 weeks old, a time frame that’s been established as the cutoff for fetal viability in many court cases, qualifies as a human being.

“Let me just say that I am a big supporter of Roe v. Wade,” Pelosi said. “I am a mother of five children in six years. I think I have some standing on this issue as to respecting a woman’s right to choose.”

It is the official and biblical position of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that human life is sacred and must be protected from the moment of conception until natural death. It is commonly understood that the church rejects abortion.

In May, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone of the San Francisco Diocese, where Pelosi is a parishioner, urged priests to deny communion to politicians that publicly profess support for abortion. Cordileone is one of a coalition of Catholic leaders that have been lobbying for the church to take a declarative stand against abortion and the nominally Catholic political figures that advocate for it in public policy.

“If you find that you are unwilling or unable to abandon your advocacy for abortion, you should not come forward to receive Holy Communion,” the archbishop said. “To publicly affirm the Catholic faith while at the same time publicly rejecting one of its most fundamental teachings is simply dishonest.”