Pelosi Struggles to Explain How She Can be a Catholic and Support Abortion

TAPPER: "So, what was it like at the first ever address of a Pope to a joint meeting of Congress?"
PELOSI: "So overwhelming. And so going beyond any expectation."
TAPPER: "So I’m told you have a folder that captures all of your experiences with Popes going back to Pope Pius X11 when you were a little girl?"
PELOSI: "Well, when I was a girl in eighth grade, my family went to the Vatican. My father was mayor of Baltimore. And our family had a private audience with Pope Pius XII. It was pretty exciting."
TAPPER: "So, let’s talk about his message for a second. There was something in there for everyone to like and something for everyone to disagree with. He made his position clear on his opposition to abortion, but he chose to emphasize other things."
PELOSI: "Yes. It was interesting when he talked about the sanctity of life. Well, we can all stand up and applaud that. But he spent a longer time talking about abolishing the death penalty, the opposite end of the issues that the bishops advocate for."
TAPPER: "How does somebody like you who is a very strong progressive, but also somebody steeped in Catholic school, how do you reconcile the Pope’s view and the Church’s view of abortion to where you are politically, which is exactly on the opposite side?"
PELOSI: "For me as a mother of five, when I brought my — when my husband and I brought our baby home from the hospital, our fifth child, our oldest was turning six that week. It was a beautiful, wonderful thing for us. But it’s not up to us to decide that it’s a beautiful, wonderful thing for other people, the sizing and timing of their — size and timing of their family is a personal decision, not a political decision. And so this issue is not just about terminating a pregnancy. It’s about family planning and that is the fight in Congress. People don’t know that. They think it’s just about one thing."