House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday pushed back against a San Francisco archbishop’s denunciation of the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill in Congress to create a statutory right for health-care professionals to provide abortions.
The Democratic-controlled House is expected to take up the measure Friday in response to a new Texas law that bans abortions as early as six weeks and allows anyone to file a lawsuit against any other person who has aided someone in obtaining an abortion, with the potential for a $10,000 payoff.
The House legislation, H.R. 3755, would codify the protections provided by the Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, legalized abortion nationwide. In a statement Tuesday, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone condemned the measure as “nothing short of child sacrifice” and asked Catholics to “immediately to pray and fast for members of Congress to do the right thing and keep this atrocity from being enacted in the law.”
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“It is especially shameful that any self-professed Catholic would be implicated in such an evil, let alone advocate for it,” Cordileone said, without naming anyone.
Both President Biden and Pelosi are Catholics and support abortion rights.
Asked Thursday about Cordileone’s remarks, Pelosi, whose district includes most of San Francisco, responded by noting that she is Catholic and that she and Cordileone have different views on the issue of reproductive rights.
“The archbishop of the city — of that area, of San Francisco — and I have a disagreement about who should decide this,” Pelosi told reporters at her weekly news conference. “I believe that God has given us a free will to honor our responsibilities.”
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Pelosi also referred to her personal background, noting that she was raised in a family that opposed abortion rights and that she and her husband had five children in a span of roughly six years.
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“I keep saying to people who say things like that, when you have five children in ... six years and one day, we can talk about what business it is of any of us to tell any else to do,” Pelosi said. “For us, it was a complete and total blessing, which we enjoy every day of our lives. But it’s none of our business how other people choose the size and timing of their families.”
According to a 2019 Pew Research Center survey, 56 percent of U.S. Catholics said abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Catholic teaching opposes abortion, however, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops recently debated the meaning of Communion and whether it is appropriate to withhold the sacrament from Catholic politicians such as Biden who support abortion rights.
After a firestorm of debate, the bishops clarified that there will be “no national policy on withholding Communion from politicians.” They are scheduled to discuss a draft about Communion at their annual meeting in November.
Michelle Boorstein contributed to this story.