Originally published June 23, 2021
https://www.queensjewishlink.com/index.php/opinion/4751-what-is-a-human-being
This week, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) made a statement that any person of faith or science would find utterly uncontroversial, yet sent a wave of panic and posturing throughout the Left. They affirmed that since they ascribe to the scientific fact that an unborn baby is a human being, Catholics who advocate for abortion should be denied Communion. This includes self-proclaimed Catholics like Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden.
The science is undeniable. Indeed, every scientific source, even those on the pro-abortion side, admits that a fetus is a human being. This is why they attempt to obfuscate the issue with terms like “clump of cells” or “personhood.” However, the same question, when asked to pro-abortion politicians (who claim to “follow the science”), cannot be answered.
When a reporter asked Pelosi, “Is an unborn baby at 15 weeks a human being?” Pelosi dodged the question. “Let me just say that I’m a big supporter of Roe v. Wade,” Pelosi said. “I am a mother of five children in six years. I have some standing on this issue as to respecting a woman’s right to choose.”
Her professed faith would be irrelevant to this discussion if she didn’t hide behind it when it suited her. In 2019, during the first House impeachment of President Trump, reporter James Rosen asked Pelosi if she hated Trump. Pelosi, who was exiting, whipped back around to the podium and verbally attacked Rosen. Pointing her finger in an accusatory manner, she said, “I don’t hate anybody. I was raised in a Catholic house. We don’t hate anybody. And as a Catholic, I resent your using the word ‘hate’ in a sentence that addresses me. I pray for the president all the time. So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.” Needless to say, many on the political Right scoffed at the notion that Pelosi “prayed” for President Trump.
The Miami Herald’s Christine M. Flowers documented two other times that Pelosi hid behind her Catholicism when this happened. In a “Meet the Press” interview in 2008, Pelosi said that “As an ardent, practicing Catholic, (abortion) is an issue that I have studied for a long time. And what I know is, over the centuries, the doctors of the church have not been able to make that definition.” A slew of bishops had to correct her. In 2013, she opposed a bill that would have banned all abortions after 20 weeks and she is not a fan of the Hyde Amendment. She has even stated that opposing abortion is not required of Catholics. The Catechism would disagree.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki had trouble answering the question as well. When asked if President Biden believes a 15-week-old unborn child is a human being, Psaki responded, “Are you asking me if the President supports a woman’s right to choose? He does.”
Let’s think about how insane it is to believe that a 15-week-old unborn child isn’t a human being, or that it’s a question that needs to be dodged. Fifteen weeks is into the second trimester. At 15 weeks, a baby’s sex is detectable by ultrasound, they can detect light (and would move away if a flashlight is pointed at the mother’s stomach), they have brain activity, heartbeat, kidneys, would suck their thumb, have their own unique fingerprints, and far more. Females have over two million eggs of their own. They are a week away from kicking so hard that a mother feels it. Biden and Pelosi can’t answer if that is a human being.
Biden, like Pelosi, has hid behind his Catholicism as well. More so, the media proclaimed that Joe Biden is the embodiment of what makes a good Catholic. In January, the New York Times proclaimed the headline, “In Biden’s Catholic Faith, an Ascendant Liberal Christianity.” The article claimed that Biden was “a president who has spent a lifetime steeped in Christian rituals and practices” and that he was “perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century.”
Catholicism is not like Judaism, where a lack of religious belief does not change your status as a Jew. Catholicism is a religion (as opposed to Judaism, which is a nationality), and as such demands its practitioners adhere to the dictates of the Catholic Church. To advocate for an act that the Church considers a mortal sin while simultaneously touting your religious bonafides is the height of hypocrisy.
Aside from the religious aspect, there’s the hypocrisy of claiming to be the “Party of Science” and that your reign means that “Science is back” and being unable to answer with honesty the scientific fact that an unborn baby is a human being. It’s worse than hypocrisy; it’s cowardice.
This is par for the course for Biden and Pelosi, who for the first seven decades of their lives knew how many genders there were, but cannot answer the question now. They, like most politicians, will lie to appease their supporters. But those of us with our eyes open and our heads clear should at least point out the ridiculousness of the position that it’s too controversial to say that a baby, born or unborn, is a human being.
Moshe Hill is a political columnist and Senior Fellow at Chovevei Zion. You can find Moshe on his blog at www.aHillwithaView.com, facebook.com/aHillwithaView, or twitter.com/TheMoHill.
