Pelosi: Late-Term Abortions Are 'Sacred'

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was adamant that late-term abortions are “sacred” at her weekly press conference today.  The issue of abortion has re-emerged due to Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-Arizona) bill, which would ban the procedure after 20 weeks into a pregnancy.  The Weekly Standard was present at the conference, and noted that Pelosi wrongly claimed that Franks’ bill would ban all abortions.  In reality, it would bar the killing of babies during the last four months of a pregnancy, with exceptions for the life and health of the mother.  John McCormack, who reported on this development, noted that this is also the “point at which science indicates babies can feel pain and some babies can survive long-term if born.”

Yet Pelosi, a Catholic, feels that “this [late-term abortion] is sacred ground to me when we talk about this. I don’t think it should have anything to do with politics.”  Sadly, when you work on the Hill, everything is politics.  Additionally, when pressed about the moral difference between Gosnell’s actions and those of Leroy Carhart, who was caught in a Live Action investigative video agreeing to a legal abortion in Maryland at 28 weeks, fireworks ensued.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD: Madam Leader, you mentioned the bill that passed out of the House Judiciary committee. Members who have proposed that bill have done that in the wake of this murder trial in Philadelphia.

They argue that there really isn’t much of a moral difference between what someone like Dr. Gosnell did to infants born at 23, 24, 25 weeks into pregnancy, and what can happen [legally] at a clinic down the road in Maryland where a doctor says he’ll perform an elective abortions 28 weeks into pregnancy. So the question I have for you is what is the moral difference between what Dr. Gosnell did to a baby born alive at 23 weeks and aborting her moments before birth?

PELOSI: You’re probably enjoying that question a lot, I can see you savoring it. [Laughter in press corps] Let me just tell you this.

TWS: Could you answer the question?

PELOSI: Let me just tell you this. What was done in Philadelphia was reprehensible and everybody condemned it. For them to decide to disrespect a judgment a woman makes about her reproductive health is reprehensible. Next question.

TWS: So what’s the moral difference? I just asked a simple question. … What’s the moral difference then between 26 weeks elective abortion and the killing of that same infant born alive. This is the issue that they’re trying to–

PELOSI: This is not the issue. They are saying that there’s no abortion. It would make it a federal law that there would be no abortion in our country. You’re taking the extreme case. You’re taking the extreme case. And what I’m saying to you what happened in Philadelphia was reprehensible. And I do not think you.

TWS: [Inaudible]

PELOSI: I’m not going to have this conversation with you because you obviously have an agenda. You’re not interested in having an answer.

TWS: [Inaudible]

PELOSI: I’ve responded to you to the extent that I’m going to respond to you. Because I want to tell you something. As the mother of five children, my oldest child was 6 years old the day I brought my 5th child home from the hospital, as a practicing and respectful Catholic, this is sacred ground to me when we talk about this. I don’t think it should have anything to do with politics. And that’s where you’re taking it and I’m not going there.

TWS [after tape ends]: It was a simple question. You didn’t answer.

So, there you have it. The leader of House Democrats has endorsed late-term abortion, she considers it sacred, and any questions that are critical of infanticide are “disrespectful” to women.  A baby at 20 weeks is not a”judgement” on “reproductive health.” It’s a person, and to terminate that child is murder.  Liberals know this, which is why Pelosi ran away.

From government telling us what to do to the life of the mother superseding that of her child, it is all part of the top-down model liberals have for civil society.  What’s even more depraved is the fact that child murder is “sacred” in the eyes of the political left.