House Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued three public statements on Monday while attending the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Spain.
The first and third profoundly contradicted the second -- in a way that can never be reconciled.
First, Pelosi spoke at an event where she concluded that we have a "moral responsibility to be good stewards" of "God's creation."
"And, then we see it as a moral issue," Pelosi said.
"When we were in Rio," she said, "they had a big religious service, every aspect of religion or no religion, but just belief in the future, and that was about our moral responsibility. If you believe, as some of us do, that this is God's creation, that we have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of it."
Second, Pelosi issued a press release announcing that she and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer had submitted an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in the case of June Medical Services LLC v. Gee.
The question in this case is whether Louisiana violated the Constitution by enacting a law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
The Pelosi-Schumer brief unapologetically defends the killing of an unborn child as a "fundamental right."
"As a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution, and one that strikes at the heart of ordered liberty and individual autonomy, a woman's right to decide to seek an abortion should be insulated from the rhetoric and interests of groups whose sole purpose is to undermine Roe and eliminate the fundamental rights enunciated in that case," it says.
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In her press release, Pelosi euphemistically referred to the killing of an unborn child as "reproductive health care."
"In states across America, women are facing an all-out campaign to dismantle Roe v. Wade and erase their right to comprehensive reproductive health care," she said.
Pelosi then turned back to the cause of protecting God's creation -- in a statement made at a press conference in Spain.
"We must act, because the climate crisis for us is a matter of public health, clean air, clean water for children's survival ... our values of justice and equality; and our moral responsibility, if you believe, as do I, that this planet is God's creation, and we have a moral responsibility to be good stewards of it.
"But if you don't share that belief," she continued, "we all agree that we have a moral responsibility to our children to pass on this planet in a very responsible way."
In Evangelium Vitae, published in 1995, Saint John Paul II explained the moral responsibility to our children we do indeed have.
The encyclical made clear that man has a responsibility to take care of the natural world God has created for him.
"The biblical text clearly shows the breadth and depth of the lordship which God bestows on man," he wrote. "It is a matter first of all of dominion over the earth and over every living creature, as the Book of Wisdom makes clear: 'O God of my fathers and Lord of mercy ... by your wisdom you have formed man, to have dominion over the creatures you have made, and rule the world in holiness and righteousness.'"
"As one called to till and look after the garden of the world ... man has a specific responsibility towards the environment in which he lives, towards the creation which God has put at the service of his personal dignity, of his life, not only for the present but also for future generations," said this pope.
"It is the ecological question -- ranging from the preservation of the natural habitats of the different species of animals and of other forms of life to 'human ecology' properly speaking -- which finds in the Bible clear and strong ethical direction, leading to a solution which respects the great good of life, of every life," said John Paul II.
He condemned under any circumstances the killing of an unborn child, which he insisted should be called by its "proper name ... murder."
"The acceptance of abortion in the popular mind, in behaviour and even in law itself, is a telling sign of an extremely dangerous crisis of the moral sense, which is becoming more and more incapable of distinguishing between good and evil, even when the fundamental right to life is at stake," wrote this pope.
"Given such a grave situation, we need now more than ever to have the courage to look the truth in the eye and to call things by their proper name, without yielding to convenient compromises or to the temptation to self-deception," he said.
"Especially in the case of abortion there is a widespread use of ambiguous terminology, such as 'interruption of pregnancy', which tends to hide abortion's true nature and to attenuate its seriousness in public opinion," he said.
"But no word has the power to change the reality of things: procured abortion is the deliberate and direct killing, by whatever means it is carried out, of a human being in the initial phase of his or her existence, extending from conception to birth," said this pope.
"The moral gravity of procured abortion is apparent in all its truth if we recognize that we are dealing with murder," he said.
Declaring the murder of unborn children a "fundamental right" can never be considered good stewardship of God's creation.
Terence P. Jeffrey is the editor in chief of CNSnews.com. \
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