From NRO’s The Corner:
Sitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”…
…Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”
What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue — come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”
If Obamacare passes, Stupak says, it could signal the end of any meaningful role for pro-life Democrats within their own party.(emphasis added)
Which is about how I view it – and, as an aside, so much for DNC spin that the bill doesn’t include abortion coverage. If it didn’t, then attaching Stupak’s amendment would be no problem.
They’re going to ram this through, abortion, kickbacks and all, regardless of what we, the people of the United States think. They’ll do it because its the leftist dream – the mechanism, in their view, for gaining operational control of the American people. The leverage to make us a social democracy – the end of the Great Republic.
I don’t think it will work out that way – but that does seem to be the way Democrat leaders, and their yapping chorus in the leftist netroots, views the matter. But that still begs the question – why, then, be insistent upon abortion funding? The left is willing to take this half a loaf ObamaCare bill knowing that if they get it in, they can always expand it, later. So why the big abortion push? I can only guess that the Culture of Death has become so entrenched – abortion has become such a leftist sacrament – that they just can’t part with it.
At any rate, any sort of abortion funding in the bill will just make it that much more unpopular – the American people do not want their tax dollars going to fund abortion. That has been clear in vote after vote and poll after poll for decades. It will be a useful tool for us to attack Democrats with in the fall – and should we win, it will be a strong means of getting the whole mess repealed.
But is Stupak right? Is this the end of pro-life opinion in the Democrat party? I think so. Stupak says he’ll stick around as a Democrat, but it might become impossible for him – the left is already going after him with a campaign of hate and slander, just as they did against Lieberman. Stupak might be essentially forced out – perhaps to become the founder of a Christian-Democrat Party?
Who knows – but anyone who is actually pro-life can have nothing to do with the Democrat party, if they do pass through ObamaCare with abortion funding of any sort.
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