US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, marked Women’s Equality Day by saying restricting access to Abortion is “guilty,” a position that does not seem to correspond to his professed Catholic faith.

Speaking last week at the Women’s Reproductive Health Roundtable in San Francisco, Pelosi condemned abortion bans or restrictions in Republican-run states like “unfair.” She added, “The fact that this is such an assault on women of color and women – low income families – is just plain sinful. It’s a sin. It’s wrong that they can tell women what they think women should do with their lives and their bodies.

As November’s midterm congressional elections approach, which will likely determine whether President Joe Biden can continue to impose his political agenda, Democrats have turned to abortion as a key campaign issue. The controversial topic came to the fore after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the court’s landmark Roe v. Wade in June, concluding that abortion is not a constitutionally protected right.

Pelosi warned that if Republicans regain control of Congress, they would enact a nationwide abortion ban — perhaps an unlikely scenario, given Biden has sworn to veto such a bill . “It’s a sin, the injustice of it all”, she says.

The 82-year-old lawmaker said Republicans are ignoring women’s health needs, diminishing opportunities for children they may already have and potentially preventing them from having children in the future. “Let’s understand the assault this is taking on women, women of color. . . low-income women. And it is an injustice, an injustice that we will not tolerate and that we cannot bear.

Pelosi, who has repeatedly touted her Catholic faith, has clashed with the Catholic Church over its support for abortion rights. San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone said he would no longer allow the politician to receive Holy Communion, saying it perpetrated a “serious harm”.

However, she was not the only self-described Catholic lawmaker to speak out against abortion restrictions at the San Francisco roundtable. “The fact that we now have a government at the federal level that mandates pregnancy — government-mandated pregnancy — goes against every personal freedom that our country is built on,” Rep. Jackie Speier, also a California Democrat, said at the event.

The United States does not have a federal ban on abortion. None of the state-level restrictions vary by skin color.