Stupak amendment could be short-lived
Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 11/10/2009 9:55:00 AM
Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Florida), the Democrats' chief deputy whip in the House, said yesterday that she and other pro-abortion lawmakers would work to strip the Stupak amendment included in the House health bill that bars federal funding of abortions under the public health insurance option. (See earlier article)
Wasserman Schultz told MSNBC, "I am confident that when it comes back from the conference committee that the language won't be there."
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Douglas Johnson, legislative director for National Right to Life, says the fate of the abortion funding ban depends on what U.S. senators hear from their constituents.
"They're going to be under enormous pressures from these well-funded, pro-abortion advocacy groups -- and President Obama will certainly be trying to get abortion back in the bill," Johnson warns.
"Remember, all along these people have been trying to pretend that abortion wasn't in the bill -- and now this is fleshed out into the open and there's going to be a terrific battle about this," he says. "And in the end, the outcome is going to depend upon what input senators are getting from their constituents."
Over the weekend, Planned Parenthood sent out an alert asking people to contact the president to ask him to live up to his promise to have abortion in the new government healthcare plan. Although the American people heard President Obama tell a joint session of Congress in September that he did not want federal funding of abortion, he promised Planned Parenthood in 2007 that abortion funding would be in his healthcare plan.
