Pope Francis shakes hands with Vice President Joe Biden along with U.S. President Barack Obama, first lady Michelle Obama, and other political and Catholic church leaders after arriving from Cuba Sept. 22 at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
 
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The abortion debate could cast a shadow over Pope Francis‘s visit to Capitol Hill this week.
The pontiff arrived for a six-day trip with stops in Washington, New York and Philadelphia just as one of the fiercest abortion battles in recent memory is unfolding on Capitol Hill, injecting the Catholic Church’s antiabortion position in the middle of a political drama that could result in a government shutdown.
A handful of conservative Republicans are urging congressional leadership to use thethreat of a government funding lapse as leverage to defund the nation’s largest abortion provider, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

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Their eagerness to end public funding of the group—which already by law can only spend public money on nonabortion reproductive care—has been fueled by a series of undercover sting videos filmed by a conservative activist group. The videos depict Planned Parenthood executives talking candidly about the donation of fetal tissue from aborted fetuses.
Hours before the pope landed in the country, Senate Democrats blocked a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, part of a a strategy by Republican leadership to avoid a shutdown. Leadership hopes to show the Planned Parenthood funding issue does not have enough Democratic support to realistically pass Congress in time to avert a government shutdown, hoping that hardline conservatives will back off the threat to link Planned Parenthood money with the government budget. Democrats strongly oppose efforts to defund the group, setting up a potential funding impasse.
Many Republicans are hoping Pope Francis will use his position as a moral leader above the partisan fray to touch on the issue. Democrats find much more common ground with the pope on the topics of poverty, income inequality and climate change.
Republican congressman Steve King told Politico last week that he hoped the pontiff would use his address before Congress to reiterate the Church’s “unfailing and steadfast opposition to abortion.”
“That’s a position of the Roman Catholic Church that’s really unassailable and I’m hopeful that that position will be reiterated from the floor of Congress next week,” he in an interview.
Pope Francis is scheduled to address a joint session of Congress on Thursday.
The White House, by contrast, insists that Pope Francis’ trip to the U.S. is not about politics.
“I don’t know whether or not those issues will come up in their meeting, but I’m confident that if they do that it will be an opportunity for the men to speak honestly with one another but also in a tone of respect that illustrates just how much they have in common,” said White House press secretary Josh Earnest about issues like abortion, contraception and the death penalty. The meeting “will be an opportunity for the president to put politics aside and have an opportunity to talk about the values that he and the pope have in common.”
The pope will be hosted by President Barack Obama at the White House on Wednesday.
Abortion politics is tricky issue for both parties. The polling is complicated and often depends on how the question is asked, but a majority of Americans seem to believe in some legal access to abortion coupled with restrictions.
A 2014 Gallup poll found that 47% of Americans described themselves broadly as “pro-choice,” while 46% described themselves as “pro-life.” Given more options, 50% of Americans said that abortion should be “legal only under certain circumstances.” Another 28% said it should be legal always, while 21% said abortion should never be legal.
A CNN/ORC poll from last year found similar numbers, with 27% saying that abortion should always be legal, 13% saying it should be legal in most circumstances, 38% supporting legal abortion in a few circumstances, and 20% arguing it should always be illegal.
Activists in both parties, by contrast, have pushed the respective party bases to the poles of the issue. Many conservative Republicans want to see abortion banned, while many liberal Democrats don’t want any abortion restrictions. The public remains somewhere in the middle, leaving both parties in an awkward position when trying to appeal to general-election voters.
Pope Francis has drawn plaudits worldwide for his efforts to re-energize the papacy and bring new adherents into the Catholic faith. He has emphasized that the Church should focus less on social issues like homosexuality and abortion, but Catholic doctrine on the issues remain unchanged. He recently said Catholic priests should offer absolution to women who confess to having had an abortion, which remains a sin under Catholic doctrine.
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