When Pope Francis told members of Congress that it is important to protect human life at every stage of development, 177 House Democrats could have cared less — they all voted against H.R. 3504, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act by Congressman Trent Franks, R-Ariz.

The bill states that intentionally killing a baby who survives an abortion is murder. If any of them dared join in the standing ovation prompted by the Pope’s comments, they are the worst kind of hypocrites.

Specifically, the bill provides that if an abortion results in the live birth of an infant, the infant:

• Is a legal person under the laws of the United States and entitled to all the protection of its laws.

• Has the same claim to the protection of the law that would arise for any newborn.

• Healthcare practitioners are required to exercise such standard of care and skill to “preserve the life and health of the child” as would be given to a child born alive “at the same gestational age.”

What really frightens the abortion lobby and their congressional and media puppets are the penalties, the least of which is for violation of the standard of care. The bill provides for a fine, imprisonment up to five years, “or both.”

The harshest penalty is set forth under the heading “Intentional Killing of Child Born Alive,” and states in part, “Whoever intentionally performs or attempts, to perform an overt act that kills a child born alive . . . shall be punished . . . for intentionally killing or attempting to kill a human being.”

In other words, they commit murder.

The bill passed with 248 supporting and 177 — all Democrats — opposed. Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly got it right when he said that the 177 “voted for infanticide.”

Given that history is replete with examples of racial, ethnic, and religious cleansing; including today’s example of ISIS — for any member of a racial, ethnic or religious minority to support infanticide is truly shameful.

Have they no sense of history of how those seeking racial purity or ethnic cleansing had no qualms about killing babies in and out of the womb. Or, conducting experiments on babies and body parts as did the Nazis?

Given that history, it was especially discouraging and disappointing to see that many of the 177 who are members of such ethnic or religious groups yielded to political pressure to appease the abortion lobby.

It was particularly disheartening to see 41 of the 42 members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) who voted with the infanticide mob in opposing the bill. The only black Republican in the Caucus, Mia Love, R-Utah, supported the bill. She was joined by fellow black Republican, and non-CBC member Will Hurd, R-Texas.

Those black members of Congress who opposed the bill showed they have truer loyalties to the mostly white pro-abortion lobby than they do to the millions of black babies aborted annually. But, knowing the CBC’s history of polishing the boots of that lobby, we should not be surprised.

Dr. Alveda King was so upset with the silence of the CBC over the atrocious Planned Parenthood videos that she wrote an open letter to the Caucus saying that her heart was “heavy over its “deafening silence” regarding the exposing of “Planned Parenthood’s practice of harvesting and selling aborted babies body parts.”

She boldly posed the following question: “Are you so beholding to the abortion lobby that you are totally paralyzed and unable to garner the necessary will to denounce their behavior?”

King got her answer with the vote: yes they are!

They probably don’t care, but the black Democrats, and others, who voted against saving the lives of babies should know a few facts:

• Abortion kills more black people than heart disease, cancer, strokes, accidents, diabetes, homicide, and respiratory illnesses combined.

• A New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene report stated more black babies were aborted than were born in New York City in 2012.

According to Walter Hoye, founder and president of the Issues4Life Foundation, the Ku Klux Klan lynched 3,446 blacks over a period of 86 years — a figure matched in less than four days when tallying the number of aborted black babies.

Do these black lives matter?

They should listen to the words of former Ohio Secretary of State and American Civil Rights Union policy board member J. Kenneth Blackwell, also black, who wrote in the Washington Times: “Abortion is the greatest threat to black lives in America today. People who claim to represent the black community while also abetting the black holocaust — abortion — are hypocrites. Any ‘civil rights leader’ who genuinely believes that ‘black lives matter’ should be working to see that every black baby is accorded the very first civil right — the right to life.”

Remember Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the black abortionist convicted of murdering babies at his Philadelphia clinic, whom I called in this space the “Black Angel of Death?”

I am sure he is asking the CBC and the 136 who joined with them, Where were you when I needed you?

Clarence V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political, and media relations consulting firm in Florida. He held several positions in the Reagan administration as well as in the Reagan presidential campaigns.