Posted on 11/09/2009 9:59:46 AM PST by MissesBush
A House Democrat leader said Monday she's “confident” controversial language on abortion will be stripped from a final healthcare bill.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House, said that she and other pro-abortion rights lawmakers would work to strip the amendment included in the House health bill that bars federal funding from going to subsidize abortions.
“I am confident that when it comes back from the conference committee that that language won't be there,” Wasserman Schultz said during an appearance on MSNBC. “And I think we're all going to be working very hard, particularly the pro-choice members, to make sure that's the case.”
The amendment, offered by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), won the support of Republicans and dozens of centrist Democrats in the House, but revealed a deep divide in the Democratic caucus over abortion.
Sixty-four Democrats voted for Stupak’s amendment, without which the House healthcare bill would not have won final passage in a 220-215 vote.
Stupak’s language not only prohibits abortion coverage in the public insurance option included in the House bill. It would also prevent private plans from offering coverage for abortion services if they accepts people who are receiving government subsidies.
Allowing the vote represented a major concession by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Stupak and other pro-life Democrats who had threatened to oppose the bill. But it came at the cost of angering liberals in the Democratic conference.
Abortion-rights supporters called it a “de facto” abortion ban and mounted an intense but unsuccessful lobbying campaign against it.
The conference between the House and Senate bills after the upper chamber passes its bill will present an opportunity to strip the Stupak amendment, and liberal Democrats have vowed to work hard to get rid of that language during that stage of the legislation.
“It was extremely painful for me to feel compelled to vote for a bill that contained that kind of restriction on a woman's ability to make her own reproductive choices,” Wasserman Schultz said.
Republicans over the weekend signaled they’d seek similar language in the Senate bill, where several centrist. Democrats are already wavering over the bill.
It’s not clear how the abortion debate could impact a final vote in the House on the healthcare bill, but it could be difficult for many of the centrists who supported Stupak’s amendment to vote for a healthcare bill that did not include his language.
In addition, the only Republican vote for the legislation; Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao (R-La.) said the Stupak amendment cleared the way for him to support the legislation.
But it’s also possible liberals could drop their support for the bill if the language is not changed.
If they do that I hope Cao and the Democrats who voted Yay on the strength of that exclusion should punish them severely on any future votes ... on anything.
Of course it will be. That’s what Pelousy had planned all along.
This tells me that Stupak, Ellison and the rest are merely looking for a pro-life fig leaf to hide behind come election time--they KNOW that their leadership will kill it in time...
This whole thing is so revolting
LLS
What a crock! The amendment doesnt restrict anyone from making her own choices. It just requires that she pay for that choice herself.
Everyone should remember that this bill will come back to the House floor for a final vote after it leaves the conference committee. So, for people like Cao and Stupak who say their pro-life voters, this will be their opportunity to vote nay on the bill if the amendment has actually been stripped in conference.
The Rats don't have a lot of breathing room. Would this amendment cost them 7 votes? I don't know.
So the question is, if the Stupak amendment is stripped out of a final bill, will Stupak and his group vote for the final bill? Popular logic would conclude that they would have to vote against the final bill, which would defeat it. But at this time we seem to be in a surreal world of deception, manipulation, blackmail, threats, and outright lies dominating the political system in Washington. So who knows what will happen. We need 50% turnover in the House in 2010 to flush out the vermin and renew the constitutional system that our Founding Fathers gave us.
It doesn’t matter if the medical bill includes “language” about abortion or if it doesn’t.
The bill itself is blatantly unconstitutional, and in combination with the carbon legislation represents a complete power grab, a coup d’etat.
The abortion elements can be added in anytime after its passed. Once you’ve lost the constitution there is no barrier to anything anyone has the power to do.
We are witnessing a coup being perpetrated by the government against the constitutional order, and we watch it like we’re watching a football game.
Although House liberals voted for the bill with the amendment to keep the process moving forward, Rep. Diana DeGette (Colo.) said she has collected more than 40 signatures from House Democrats vowing to oppose any final bill that includes the amendment -- enough to block passage.
"There's going to be a firestorm here," DeGette said. "Women are going to realize that a Democratic-controlled House has passed legislation that would prohibit women paying for abortions with their own funds. . . . We're not going to let this into law."
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2382250/posts
Looks like they’ll lose even more votes if they don’t strip the Stupak amemdment. No win situation ...
Actually, you need to only sway 3 votes to go from 220-215 to 217-218, killing Ponzi-losi's wet dream. And it sounds like Stupak and Cao would reverse course if the amendment is removed or gutted. So, the count is magic number is down to 1, if my math is correct.
For some reason I was thinking that the Dems had 225 votes. You're right, with 220, they only need lose 3 votes.
Hopefully, this will put Pelosi in an untenable and unwinnable position with both the leftists and the less-leftists of her party.
It only needs to cost them 3 votes to lead to a defeat. If three "yes" votes become "no" votes, it would be 218-217 to defeat the bill. Cao almost certainly would be one when the abortion language is stripped out, so two more D's would need to vote "no".
What is this dumb broad talking about? The amendment prevents the use of FEDERAL dollars from subsidizing abortions, not the use of anyone's private resources. Do these DemoCraps even know how to tell the truth anymore?
Stupak=STUPIDPak
What idiot’s believed that this amendment was anything but cover for Dems in conservative districts.
Mark my words. The abortion issue will be the death of this country.
Nancy Pelosi has just rammed the most anti-human bill yet through that House of Whores. She is a tyrant just like every other tyrant the human race has produced.
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