Why is Stupak causing chaos?
Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak just keeps trying to get a fair hearing for his amendment to explicitly exclude taxpayer funding of abortion from the House health care legislation. After being sounding rejected by leaders of his own party, a suprising thing happened over the weekend.
[House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s hand appeared to have been forced when pro-abortion House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced earlier in the day that she did not have enough votes to pass the bill because of objections from pro-life Democrats.
The committee okayed a Rule that allows the House to vote on the Stupak amendment, offered by pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, to the health care reform legislation.
Stupak had dozens of Democrats who threatened to vote against the Rule and the bill if he did not get a vote on his amendment. If the amendment is defeated, Stupak and pro-life Democrats will likely still oppose the bill because of the abortion funding.
The bill, HR 3962, currently funds abortions in two ways — by allowing the public option (or government-run health care program) to pay for abortions and by allowing the affordability credits the government would give to consumers to be used to pay for health care plans that fund abortions.
The Stupak amendment would apply the fundamental principles of the Hyde amendment, which has long prohibited abortion funding under the Medicaid and HHS programs, to the health care reform bill and essentially prohibit all government funding of abortion under it.
Douglas Johnson, the legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, told LifeNews.com after the committee vote on the Rule that the vote on the Stupak could be the most important abortion-related vote cast in Congress since Roe.
It was a remarkable turnaround forced by the slipping Democratic votes in favor of the legislation that covers abortion. Not having the votes to push it through meant capitulating to at least hearing debate on the Stupak amendment.
“After the deal was struck, annoyed pro-choice leaders filed out of Pelosi’s office to confer with their supporters,” it concluded.
Hopeful pro-life leaders called on their supporters to speak out to congressional members on the will of the people on this issue that’s nothing less than a deal breaker. Their message:
Contact your members of the House of Representatives immediately at http://www.House.gov and urge a YES vote on the Stupak amendment to stop abortion funding in the health care bill.
[And] urge your members to vote NO on the health care bill HR 3962 if the Stupak amendment is defeated.
It’s a standoff and time’s limited before it will be determined in the House. It’s ‘the People’s House’, as Speaker Pelosi exulted when she took over last year. Surely they must be open to the people’s wishes.
