Nancy Pelosi does it again.
On abortion
Pelosi recently was criticized for the way she characterized a
bill to amend Republican-proposed conscience exemptions for health-care
reform that allow providers to refuse to perform abortions. Pelosi
called the measure, which passed last month with some help from
Democrats, “savage,’’ and said, “When the Republicans vote for this bill
today, they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and
health-care providers do not have to intervene, if this bill is passed.
It’s just appalling.”
In retrospect, does she think that
assessment went too far? Not at all, she said: “They would” let women
die on the floor, she said. “They would! Again, whatever their intention
is, this is the effect.’’
Catholic health-care providers in
particular have long said they’d have to go out of business without the
conscience protections that Pelosi says amount to letting hospitals “say
to a woman, ‘I’m sorry you could die’ if you don’t get an abortion.”
Those who dispute that characterization “may not like the language,’’
she said, “but the truth is what I said. I’m a devout Catholic and I
honor my faith and love it . . . but they have this
conscience thing’’ that she insists put women at physical risk, although
Catholic providers strongly disagree.
On one occasion, she said,
laughing, one of her critics on the topic of abortion, speaking on the
House floor, said, “Nancy Pelosi thinks she knows more about having
babies than the pope. They think like this. And of course I do — I think
the pope would agree — and I know more than you, too, mister.’’
I think many of our politicians (and then some) are not much different.
