WASHINGTON House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has always been a close ally of the abortion rights movement, but several feminist leaders turned on her this week after she said the Democratic Party should continue to be inclusive of anti-abortion candidates.

Courting social conservatives by selling out women is not a winning campaign strategy but a morally bankrupt attempt to win votes without concern for the women who desperately need Democrats in their corner to fight against Republican attempts to restrict abortion, said Shaunna Thomas, co-founder of the feminist advocacy group Ultraviolet.

Pelosi, who is seeking to capitalize on dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump to try to pick up House seats in the 2018 midterm elections, told The Washington Post in an interview Tuesday that the subject of abortion is fading as a source of internecine tension for Democrats and that the party should not start having a litmus test for candidates on singular issues. She noted that some of her colleagues, including Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), oppose abortion rights and that shed like them to stay in the Democratic Party.

This is not a rubber-stamp party, she said.

Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said Pelosis strategy would move the Democratic Party backward and trade away hard-fought womens rights for political points. Thomas, who has never before criticized Pelosi, said her comments on abortion rights are unsettling and dead wrong.

If the Democrats will not stand by women unconditionally and support their right to reproductive health care, then who will? she said.

Pelosi pointed to her devout Catholic family as the reason she tolerates differing views on abortion. Most of those people my family, extended family are not pro-choice. You think Im kicking them out of the Democratic Party?

Catholics for Choice, an abortion rights group, denounced Pelosis comments as downright irresponsible and out of touch with most Catholics. The organization pointed out that a majority of Catholic voters actually support legal abortion , despite the churchs teachings.

As Catholics, we are dismayed by Minority Leader Pelosis out-of-touch and self-serving statements that throw women and their right to make their own moral decisions under the bus, said Jon OBrien, the groups president. Lets be clear: Unity in diversity of thought is an important value in America and what any political party should seek to nurture. However, a party that claims the mantle on social justice and civil liberties cannot turn its back on womens moral autonomy and the right to make conscience-based decisions.