Liberals to Pelosi: Get Rid of Stupak Language or We Won’t Back Health Reform
EmailThe backlash from abortion rights supporters has begun. Question for the White House: How to balance the promise not to fund abortions with the promise not to erode private abortion coverage? ABC News' Teddy Davis has the details on the pro-choice revolt: A fight has broken out among Democrats over abortion, presenting President Obama with a new obstacle in his push for comprehensive health-care reform. Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., an abortion rights opponent, prevailed on Saturday and the House of Representatives passed an amendment which would bar government subsidies from being used to help pay for any health insurance plan which includes an abortion service. Abortion rights supporters are now fighting back, vowing to keep Stupak's amendment from being a part of the final legislation which ultimately reaches President Obama's desk. Although liberal House Democrats voted over the weekend for the health-care bill with the Stupak amendment, Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., is collecting signatures from colleagues who are vowing to oppose any conference report that includes the Stupak restriction. "The Stupak-Pitts amendment to H.R. 3962, The Affordable Healthcare for America Act, represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women's ability to access the full range of reproductive health services to which they are lawfully entitled," reads DeGette's letter to Pelosi. "We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women's right to choose any further than current law." As of early Monday afternoon, DeGette's spokesperson says that the congresswoman has more than 40 signatures — enough to block passage of health-care reform if the Stupak language is not changed. DeGette, who has asked White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel for a meeting with the president, is not releasing the names of her signatories until she is done circulating her letter among House colleagues. See below for the text of Degette's letter to Pelosi: ##November 7, 2009The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Speaker
U.S. House of Representatives
H-232 Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Madam Speaker:
As Members of Congress we believe that women should have access to a full range of reproductive health care. Health care reform must not be misused as an opportunity to restrict women’s access to reproductive health services.
The Stupak-Pitts amendment to H.R. 3962, The Affordable Healthcare for America Act, represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women’s ability to access the full range of reproductive health services to which they are lawfully entitled. We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women’s right to choose any further than current law.
Sincerely, ##ABC News' Z. Byron Wolf contributed to this report.
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the bill to knowhere.how about some stinking jobs? can we focus on something thats more important to americans…like jobs, private sector jobs?
Posted by: catman | November 9, 2009, 3:08 pm 3:08 pm
Abortion is legal,I will never have to worry about having to choose so it does not effect me. It should be between a Woman her God and the Doctor,with out government interference. If god finds it so reprehensible I am sure he has the power to deal with it, without any intervention by Do gooders.
Posted by: marion | November 9, 2009, 3:09 pm 3:09 pm
If a woman wants an elective abortion she should pay for it her money not with mine! It is after all her choice
Posted by: whatsgoingonhere? | November 9, 2009, 3:33 pm 3:33 pm
how about some stinking jobs? can we focus on something thats more important to americans…like jobs, private sector jobs?
As an American (albeit a woman, so totes unimportant, yah), reproductive rights is a vital issue to me. If you can’t focus on and prioritize more than one thing, that’s your problem. Interesting how it’s “not important” to a man.
If a woman wants an elective abortion she should pay for it her money not with mine! It is after all her choice
Except no one expects you to pay for abortions. Private insurance plans covered them and now cannot. I guess less government interference is OK unless it’s needed to keep the wimminfolk in line.
Posted by: Esme Weatherwax | November 9, 2009, 3:39 pm 3:39 pm
As a woman who can afford to pay out of pocket you need not worry about me…worry yourself with paying for the goverment support awarded to unwanted children of mothers who cannot afford an abortion.
Posted by: Rebecca | November 9, 2009, 5:56 pm 5:56 pm
I’m pro-choice, but like Marion, I thought at first that abortion is elective, and I don’t want to pay for someone else’s irresponsible decision, then I realized we’d be doing that either way. Pregnancy is a lot more expensive than an abortion, as well as welfare needed for the family if the mother keeps the child, or foster care if she can’t afford to keep it, since the stupak amendment would keep women poor enough to qualify for government money to pay for her health insurance from getting coverage that includes abortion.
Posted by: just think | November 9, 2009, 6:21 pm 6:21 pm
She is against it after she voted for it?
Posted by: james andrews | November 9, 2009, 6:44 pm 6:44 pm
@whatsgoingonhere: First, I’d be curious to know if you’re a woman. If you aren’t, then you really have no idea what you’re talking about. If you are, then please adopt all unwanted children and pay for mental health care for the mothers who were raped, incested, or who will die if they carry a baby to term.
Second, by your reasoning, I want Congress to withdraw *my* tax dollars from Bush’s War in Iraq. I think that’s more obscene and I sure don’t want to support it.
Posted by: Cheryle | November 9, 2009, 7:13 pm 7:13 pm
OK, let’s get real! this is clearly a balancing act by the MOC’s to see just how long the can milk the PAC Groups, public and private, for ever dime they can get and still come out with such a watered down piece of legislation that it won’t cost them their jobs in 2010. anybody who thinks this has anything to do with either abortion or health care, i have some swamp land in FL i’d just love to sell ya!
Posted by: Jim Jordan | November 9, 2009, 7:44 pm 7:44 pm
The Senate’ll take care of this because the $88G policy sounds fishy(priv. ins. costs++)!! The Abor. Rights people have lots of swaying juice too!! If not, the Supreme Court and/or Pres. Obama get it outta there!!
Posted by: Orus | November 9, 2009, 7:52 pm 7:52 pm
Am I crazy or did a commenter just ask the GOVERNMENT to create PRIVATE sector jobs?
Posted by: Tony | November 9, 2009, 8:19 pm 8:19 pm
Surprised? This has never been about health care its about ideology and power.
Posted by: Rob | November 9, 2009, 8:58 pm 8:58 pm
Abortion is LEGAL and the government does not have the right to eliminate it from health care coverage. Women pay for health care with our money and we should have all of our procedures covered just like men do. Shame on Obama for throwing women under the bus.
The government covers Viagra. Why is that OK?
Posted by: Bubbles | November 9, 2009, 9:01 pm 9:01 pm
Everyday in DC always proves Everything in DC is always NUTS !
Posted by: GripperDon | November 9, 2009, 9:03 pm 9:03 pm
I find the outcries of opposition to the Stupak Amendment from those who support a “woman’s right to choose” quite interesting. When the “choice” provided by the free market is surrendered to allow for government intervention, one must deal with the consequences. Regardless of one’s position on abortion, this should be a resounding alarm as to the likely future of government controlled health care system.
Posted by: Robert Beatty | November 10, 2009, 12:54 am 12:54 am
The duplicity of the “right to privacy” crowd on abortion. Abortion is a woman’s “private choice,” except that society must approve it and pay for it. The DeGette/Pelosi/Obama strategy is essentially dishonest because there is NO “private” money in a plan when (a) the Plan is run by the Government; (b) you have to be part of the plan; and (c) the government collects the fees. In any normal (i.e., non-DeGette/Pelosi/Obama) world, such monies assessed by the Government and collected by it are called “taxes.” To pretend that they are “private,” when money in the U.S. Treasury is fungible, is accounting legerdemain: if your local CPA tried that, he’d be answering charges of fraud. So the ones who REALLY want to change the status quo are not Congresman Stupak et al., but the Obamas and Pelosis and DeGettes of the world who want to overturn 30+ years of federal policy, since the Hyde Amendment was first enacted in 1976, that says that government money is not used for abortion … period … no ifs, ands, or buts. Interestingly, the President–who often wails crocodile tears about his commitment to the rights of conscience–appears to have no compunction about forcing taxpayers, including those who deem abortion murder, to be complicit in this project. But what do you want from a man who, as a Illinois State Senator, found a proposed bill that would require a physician to attend to a child who just might survive the abortionist’s craft to be objectionable?
Posted by: JMG | November 10, 2009, 7:01 am 7:01 am
Obama defended infanticide in Illinois when he lied about the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.
On the floor of the Illinois Senate, Obama repeatedly referred to a baby OUTSIDE the womb as ‘a fetus’ and pretended that he was only protecting abortion rights after the child had already been born.
Posted by: Joe White | November 10, 2009, 2:23 pm 2:23 pm
Congressperson Diana is right. The healthcare reform bill is too one-dimensional. If Obama and the bureaucrats are being allowed to kill the old and the disabled through death panels, women should be paid for killing babies too.
Posted by: Steve | November 10, 2009, 3:28 pm 3:28 pm
Some way or another we just have get the religious right out of politics. whenever a good thing, like health refoprm is looks like it may be getting traction the religious right finds a way to through a monkey wrench in the works. if they want to follow their outdated religious nonsense let them. but leave the rest of us alone. we’d be so much farther ahead in all departments is george bush hadn’t pandered to the religious right to get himself elected.
Posted by: wayne sande | November 10, 2009, 4:23 pm 4:23 pm
The U.S.A. is overpopulated and on a non-sustainable road to the future, with energy supplies decreasing, soils eroding. forests cut and land contaminated with all manner of chemicals. We are on our way out as the dominant animal. Consequently we should willingly pay for every abortion, every condom and any other methods to curb population growth regardless of who was at fault for the pregnancy. No unplanned children are needed. As for the Catholic Bishops, they are just a sorry ass lot of fools that no one should give any credence to.
Posted by: Lee Miller | November 10, 2009, 4:36 pm 4:36 pm
I don’t condone abortion but it should be part of the health care system. Health care covers smoking, drinking, obesity ETC that are detrimental to your health and the consequences are covered.But….these are men and women problems…wereby abortion is a woman problem..who is the majority in Congress????? No,,, I am a male.
Posted by: BSKI | November 10, 2009, 5:31 pm 5:31 pm
Get rid of Pelosi
Posted by: bobp | November 10, 2009, 9:24 pm 9:24 pm
Lee Miller wrote:
“The U.S.A. is overpopulated…No unplanned children are needed”
ZPGers need to think a bit more.
Just because a child wasn’t initially ‘planned’ doesn’t mean he won’t be a productive, beneficial member of society.
Posted by: Joe White | November 11, 2009, 7:49 am 7:49 am
when did the government care so much about who has insurance or who doesnt? all this is ,another way for the government to control our lives.i sure dont want the government telling me when i can go to the dr and for what i can have.
i pray to God that he will keep us free,and our country protected.
Posted by: elizabeth | November 11, 2009, 1:50 pm 1:50 pm
MARION: The Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution 1) exists to ensure that all individuals are treated fairly and 2) guarantees to innocent persons the full protection of their inalienable right to life. Certainly, God does have the power to deal with those who choose to commit the “reprehensible act” of slaughtering innocent babies (image search “ABORTION”), but concerned citizens and governments, if they are committed to justice, absolutely have the right–and the imperative–to interfere with the termination of those who have committed no crime other than having been conceived by parents who didn’t give a damn. That the government should extort blood-money from my wages is something I have a right to protest. It’s a moral and economic injustice about which every American should be concerned. I applaud the minority of Democrats who believe in a right to life and who broke with the majority of their party to uphold the freedom of conscience of taxpayers who, under the Healthcare Reform Bill, would be co-opted as accomplices to infanticide. As much as I hate socialism, I know that the passage of the Healthcare Reform Bill is inevitable. Though abortion is euphemized by the liberal elite as “a reproductive health service” and defended on the grounds of “the health of the mother,” actual abortions are operations of convenience that rarely ever have the slightest connection to the mother’s health. On account of the ethical questionability of abortion and the practical reality that abortions are elective procedures, the Stupak amendment should be fully considered and adopted, instead of flatly dismissed by uncritical adherents to the status quo.
Posted by: Jonathan | November 12, 2009, 5:09 pm 5:09 pm