Congressional Democrat leaders turned a deaf ear to 25% of their own House members for months; CNN reports that 61% of Americans favor the pro-life amendment to health care bill.
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-- From "What our amendment does" by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) writing in Politico 11/18/09
Abortion rights supporters have spent the past week expressing their outrage over the passage of the Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts amendment to the House health care reform bill. This amendment was not the result of a last-minute backroom deal. Anti-abortion Democrats have said since July that we would oppose any rule to bring a health care bill to the floor that did not contain the Hyde language. Rather than work with us to find a true compromise, members who support abortion rights ignored our concerns.
With 64 Democrats — a quarter of the Democrats in the House — voting in favor of the Stupak-Ellsworth-Pitts amendment, this decision was clearly a mistake on their part.
. . . abortion rights supporters have tried to argue that the Capps amendment, added to the bill by the Energy and Commerce Committee, was a sufficient “compromise” in line with the Hyde language. Yet this compromise was struck without an anti-abortion presence at the table. It is hardly a good-faith compromise when you circumvent the very group whose concerns you are attempting to address. Not a single anti-abortion group supported the Capps amendment.
The Capps amendment would have set a new precedent for abortion funding, essentially overturning the Hyde language that has been federal policy since 1977.
. . . The Hyde language has never allowed private and public funds to be segregated in the way that Rep. Lois Capps proposed.
[The pro-abortion Democrats] are also off-base in their assertion that the vast majority of Americans disagree with the stance taken by the Catholic bishops.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
From "Poll: Majority favor abortion funding ban" CNN 11/18/09
Six in 10 Americans favor a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion, according to a new poll.
The poll also indicates that the public might also favor legislation that would prevent many women from getting their health insurance plan to cover the cost of an abortion, even if no federal funds are involved.
And by a 51 percent to 45 percent margin, those questioned in the survey think that women who get abortions should pay the full costs out of their own pocket, even if they have private health insurance and no federal funds are involved. The 6-point difference is within the poll's sampling error.
The survey indicates that 26 percent say abortion should be legal in all circumstances, with half of those questioned saying it should be legal in certain circumstances, and just under one in four saying abortion should never be legal.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
The above survey reinforces previous polls of 2009 showing public opposition to abortion.
