After a press conference on impeachment proceedings, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was asked a simple question, “Do you hate the president?” It elicited a fierce reaction.

In her comments, the Speaker said in part, “I don’t hate anybody. I was raised Catholic—we don’t hate anybody in the world. … I think the president is a coward when it comes to helping our kids who are afraid of gun violence. I think he is cruel when he doesn’t help our dreamers. I think he is in denial about climate crisis. That is about the election, this is about the constitution. As a Catholic, I resent the word hate in a sentence addressing me. I don’t hate anyone. I was raised in a way with a heart full of love. I always pray for the president, and I still pray for the president. I pray for the president all the time. So, don’t mess with me with words like that.”

It’s good that Speaker Pelosi prays for the president. As Christians, we’re called to pray for our government leaders. But what about preborn life? Pelosi says that she doesn’t “hate” anybody and has a “heart full of love,” but her continued support for abortion makes those comments fall flat.

Here are just some of the pro-abortion bills that she has supported in her time as a House Representative:

She voted no on HR 748, which “amend(ed) the federal criminal code to prohibit transporting a minor across a state line to obtain an abortion.” If this law didn’t pass, it would have made it easier for sexual abusers to conceal their crimes against minors who they got pregnant by crossing state lines for an abortion.

In 2004, she voted no on HR 1997. This bill, also known as Laci and Conner’s law, made it a federal crime to kill a preborn baby in the commission of a violent crime. The murder of Laci Peterson, and her preborn son Conner, by her husband was one of the most infamous crimes of the early 2000s. Their bodies were discovered in San Francisco bay, close to Pelosi’s district.

She voted no on HR 534, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act. This bill would have “prohibited any person or entity, in or affecting interstate commerce, from knowingly: (1) performing or attempting to perform human cloning; (2) participating in such an attempt; (3) shipping or receiving an embryo produced by human cloning or any product derived from such embryo; or (4) importing such an embryo or derived product.”

Perhaps most importantly, she voted no on HR 3660, which banned partial-birth abortions, also known as dilation and extraction. The procedure requires doctors to pull the preborn child out through the cervix feet first, then the abortionist then punctures the skull with scissors or another sharp instrument and then the skull is compressed so the body can be removed. These abortions were performed on mostly healthy women and preborn babies, according to Ron Fitzsimmons of the National Coalition of Abortion providers. 

The Bible commands that we pray for those in leadership (1 Timothy 2:2). But it also teaches that we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and that God knows us before, during and after we are in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5). As Christians, we have received the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), including the inherent value of life, from the womb to end of life. Let’s pray for a change of heart in Speaker Pelosi and others in leadership who would benefit from seeing preborn life the way God does.

 

Photo from MSNBC