Conor Lamb, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania's 18th congressional district special election, said Monday that he does not support proposals to ban abortion after the mother reaches 20 weeks of pregnancy.
"I'd have voted against it," Lamb told the Weekly Standard when asked how he would vote on such a bill.
Lamb added that he would not describe his beliefs as "pro-life" because it is a "political term."
"I just want to say, I don't use the term 'pro-life' to describe what I personally believe, because that's a political term," he said. "It's not one that you learn in Catholic school or anywhere else in the church."
Lamb, a Catholic, has said during his campaign that he is personally opposed to abortion due to his Catholic faith and that he believes life beings at conception.
"We believe that life begins at conception," he told the Standard, "but as a matter of separation of church and state, I think a woman has the right to choose under the law, so I would vote against" a ban on abortion after 20 weeks.
Another Catholic Democrat from Pennsylvania, Sen. Bob Casey, last month supported The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which sought to make it illegal for a person to perform, or attempt to perform, an abortion after 20 weeks. The Senate voted to block the bill after its supporters were unable to overcome a filibuster preventing its passage. Fifty-one senators voted for the legislation.
Lamb, a former federal prosecutor, is running in a Republican-dominated district but is only trailing his Republican opponent, Rick Saccone, by three points, according to a Monmouth University poll released last month.