Last Updated Mar 13th, 2020 at 4:13 pm

Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse on Friday sharply criticized Nancy Pelosi's efforts to sneak federal abortion funding into a coronavirus response bill, claiming the Speaker of the House is "waging unnecessary culture wars" while the disease rages throughout the country.

The Republican senator made the statement to National Review in response to Pelosi's reported attempt earlier this month to circumvent federal law and direct federal funding to abortion clinics:

"Speaker Pelosi should be fighting the coronavirus pandemic, not politicizing emergency funding by fighting against the bipartisan Hyde Amendment," Sasse said. "We need to be ramping up our diagnostic testing, not waging culture wars at the behest of Planned Parenthood. Good grief."

🔦 The Hyde Amendment is a statute that forbids federal money from going to abortion in most cases, with exceptions made if the life of the mother is endangered.