Abortion is the high, holy sacrament of the Democratic Party — such a hallowed, revered rite that not even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a professed Roman Catholic and mother of five, dare speak against it. She doesn’t even want to talk about it, let alone defend her support for the practice.
On Thursday, the speaker declined to answer a simple question about abortions performed in the second trimester, choosing instead to dismiss the query with a remark about her own experiences as a mother.
“Is an unborn baby at 15 weeks a human being?” a reporter asked Pelosi at a press briefing.
The congresswoman, who often cites her Catholic faith in response to these types of questions, declined to answer.
“Let me just say that I’m a big supporter of Roe v. Wade,” Pelosi said, referring to the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling legalizing abortion. “I am a mother of five children in six years. I have some standing on this issue as to respecting a woman’s right to choose.”
The reporter’s question comes not long after the Supreme Court agreed this year to review a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks.
The journalist persisted Thursday, asking again whether a 15-week-old unborn child is “a human being.” The speaker again ignored the question and then moved on quickly to an entirely separate topic.
“I am a mother” is really not an answer to whether abortion takes a human life. It is, in fact, a false appeal to authority. And it looks especially bad precisely because a mother, of all people, shouldn’t have a hard time answering the question.
Pelosi does have some “standing on the issue” on account of her having a large family. For her, this shouldn’t be a difficult question. But as the standard-bearer for a party with a fanatical devotion to keeping abortion legal and available through all nine months of pregnancy, she cannot even bring herself to say whether a 15-week-old unborn child is a human being.
Imagine how fanatically devoted to politics one must be to deny even one’s most life-affirming experiences.
Reporter asks Nancy Pelosi, “Is an unborn baby at 15 weeks a human being?”
Pelosi: “Let me just say that I am a big supporter of Roe v. Wade. 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.” pic.twitter.com/JnCX67Cfk3
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 17, 2021
Pelosi’s comments this week are reminiscent of the other times she has dodged relevant and reasonable questions about her position on abortion, a practice she defends and endorses with the fever of a true believer.
In 2015, for example, she was asked by CNS News’s Sam Dorman, “Is an unborn baby with a human heart and human liver a human being?”
“Why don’t you take your ideological questions — I don’t know who you are, and you’re welcome to be here and freedom of this press,” she started to say in response.
Dorman also asked her under what species she would classify a “fetus.”
“I am a devout, practicing Catholic,” Pelosi said. “A mother of five children. When my baby was born, my fifth child, my oldest child was 6 years old. I think I know more about this subject than you, with all due respect.”
Pelosi concluded by saying she did “not intend” to answer his question.
Again, a nonanswer with an appeal to authority.
Earlier, in 2013, Pelosi dodged an equally simple question about the moral difference between what convicted serial killer Kermit Gosnell did to children born alive versus what happens to children aborted moments before birth. The question, which was posed by then-Weekly Standard reporter John McCormack, came in reference specifically to a bill banning late-term abortions after 20 weeks of gestation. Pelosi opposed the bill.
The congresswoman responded first by saying the proposed measure would make it such that “there will be no abortion in our country.”
“As a practicing and respectful Catholic,” she added, “this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this. I don’t think it should have anything to do with politics.”
There’s a pattern to how Pelosi avoids answering questions about abortion. She cites either motherhood or her faith (or both) and then says in so many words, “What more needs to be said?”
Well, quite a bit, actually. Pelosi can start by explaining how she reconciles being a mother and a Catholic with her unwavering support for abortion. The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a grave, moral evil. The punishment for either procuring or participating in an abortion is automatic excommunication, which can only be lifted by a bishop.
In other words, like her appeals to motherhood, citing her faith to defend her support for abortion actually makes her look worse.
A mother knows her unborn children are human beings. And a Catholic, even a moderately serious one, wouldn’t be in the position of defending abortion in the first place.
