Anti-abortion Democrats working on a vote deal with Senate on bill

[kpete]

Source: The Hill


Anti-abortion Democrats working on a vote deal with Senate on bill
By Jared Allen and Jeffrey Young - 03/19/10 11:39 AM ET

At least six anti-abortion Democrats are open to supporting the healthcare bill if they can get a guarantee from the Senate that it will move separate legislation containing the House abortion language, one of those Democratic holdouts said Friday.

Natural Resources Committee Chairman Nick Rahall (D-W.Va.), one of Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) gang of staunch opponents of the Senate abortion language, said they are in discussions with senators and House leaders to secure such a commitment.

“There could be some kind of commitment from the other body to act on this later … to ensure that the Senate language does not remain law,” he said.

Rahall said that securing such an agreement could open up six to 10 members, including himself, to voting for the Senate bill and reconciliation language.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/87865-pro-life-dems-working-on-a-vote-deal

[Ozymanithrax]

1. Well, there are six to ten Senators that need to be replaced. N/t

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. Yes, they do...

In the meantime, however, we need to deal with them, unfortunately.

[Jennicut]

2. They will get a separate bill that will never pass the Senate. One wonders

why they don't just vote for the bill instead of all this wrangling since their stupid abortion ideas are going to fail anyway. Perhaps it was never about abortion in the first place, especially for Mr. "The Family" Stupak.

[Bette Noir]

4. Of course. If it were about reducing the numbers of abortions,

these anti-abortionists would be fighting for single-payer universal health care. WaPo ran a great column on the topic the other day:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/12/AR2010031202287.html

These right-wingers don't want abortion eliminated; they'd lose their biggest talking point. Mostly, I think they argue in order to gin up support at rallies, with the side effect of punishing women for straying from their assigned "place."