Catholic bishops assisting Ben Nelson in drafting abortion amendment in Senate.

madfloridian

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Sat Dec-05-09 02:21 PM
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Catholic bishops assisting Ben Nelson in drafting abortion amendment in Senate.

Nelson said he ordinarily doesn't "draw lines in the sand", but he was drawing one now over abortion. He and Orrin Hatch seem to have plenty of help drafting their bill from the committee of Catholic Bishops.

Abortion battle could derail health bill

Nelson certainly has a long history of agitating his party by withholding his vote until he wrings out every last concession from Senate leaders. But on the uncompromising issue of abortion, Democrats fear he may really be serious this time.

�There is a worry that Sen. Nelson means business,� said a senior Senate Democratic aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy. �Unlike with public option, there is very little ground liberal Democrats are willing to give on this issue. Abortion, not the public option, may be the cause of our first official defection.�

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which proved highly influential in the House health care debate, is assisting Nelson and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in drafting an anti-abortion amendment, and its representatives are meeting with senators, including Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.).

The bishops have also sent a nationwide bulletin insert to its parishes for Sunday Mass, according to a source familiar with the plans. The conference rallied parishioners in a similar way ahead of the House vote. The bishops conference didn�t return calls seeking comment.

In fact Nelson has said that the bill is not finished, that anti-choice groups need more time to review it.

To be fair, Hatch was "there" first. He offered a version of the Stupak Amendment to the evolving health reform bill in committee this past summer. It failed.

For his part, Nelson said that the amendment�s language was not finished, and that groups opposed to abortion � notably the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops � needed more time to review it.

So there we are ladies: Your lives in the hands of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a small group of men who don't even represent the majority of their own faith much less the majority of Americans.

And the Senators in question are not even shy about admitting it.

Both parties openly admitted the bishops played an active role in getting the Stupak amendment passed.

Both parties credit Catholic Bishops for the inclusion of the Stupak amendment.

Both sides credited a forceful lobbying effort by Roman Catholic bishops with the success of the provision, inserted in the bill under pressure from conservative Democrats.

The provision would apply only to insurance policies purchased with the federal subsidies that the health legislation would create to help low- and middle-income people, and to policies sold by a government-run insurance plan that would be created by the legislation.

Abortion rights advocates charged Sunday that the provision threatened to deprive women of abortion coverage because insurers would drop the procedure from their plans in order to sell them in the newly expanded market of people receiving subsidies.

It would appear that the Catholic groups, the anti-choice groups, have more access to Congress than pro-choice groups do.

Our traditional pro-choice advocates such as NARAL and Planned Parenthood either were denied the same access to our Democratic majority or were caught unaware of the power of the opposition.