Speaker Nancy Pelosi Complains About Abortion Funding Ban Killing Health Care Bill
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
November 16, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — In a Friday speech, Speaker Nancy Pelosi revisited the abortion funding battle that took place in the House before debate on the government-run health care bill. She complained that pro-life advocates who want to stop abortion funding in health care really just want to defeat the legislation itself.
Pelosi claimed opponents of abortion funding were attempting to use the vote on the Stupak amendment as an excuse to defeat the government-run health care measure.
"This is not a bill about abortion," Pelosi said. "This is legislation about health care and we have to keep it centered there."
"There are some who do not support health care reform who want to use this issue to eclipse all of the other wonderful things that are in our bill," she added.
Pelosi also responded to pro-abortion critics who complain she should have never allowed the Stupak amendment to receive a vote, something she did with the hopes of getting enough votes for the bill itself.
According to a Politico report, she said that Republicans had planned to introduce the Stupak amendment as a substitute "motion to recommit" which would have added the Stupak language to the bill and sent the measure back to committee — which is something she didn’t want to have happen.
She also didn’t want pro-life Republican lawmakers to control the abortion and health care debate, calling it "very destructive" and something that could have defeated the entire bill.
Pelosi said she remains "optimistic" that a compromise can be worked out on abortion funding, but a similar amendment doesn’t appear as if it will be approved on the Senate bill and pro-life advocates expect Democrats to remove Stupak during the conference committee.
Pelosi’s comments came in a conversation with former presidential adviser David Gergen during a one-hour event at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
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