Bob Casey Won’t Commit to Oppose Pro-Abortion Health Care, Pro-Lifers Challenge
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 18, 2009
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Pennsylvania lawmaker Bob Casey is increasingly a man without a country as the self-declared pro-life advocate won’t get on board with the rest of the pro-life members of the Senate in opposition to the pro-abortion health care bill that could result in hundreds of thousands of additional abortions.
The abortion divide is so large that it has prompted fellow Democrat Ben Nelson to oppose the bill and join Republicans in filibustering it.
Casey proposed a compromise but it retained the abortion funding, was rejected by Nelson and pro-life groups, and is earning him a pro-abortion tag by some pro-life advocates.
Casey has seen pro-life advocates fill his office in protest, but, on Thursday, the Catholic politician still would not commit to opposing the bill.
CNS News reports that he "danced around the question on Thursday" when it asked if he agreed with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that the bill should be opposed because of the massive abortion funding and until it is removed.
“The big goal here is to get a health care bill done,” he said.
Casey added that there are many reasons that have nothing to do with abortion about “why the bill should be passed.”
He told CNS that the abortion funding debate should be resolved in a manner that “respect[s] the conscience of those who are paying premiums that don’t want to have their dollars paying for abortion. I think we can get there but I’m not going—at least not today—comment on what a group (USCCB) is saying out there.”
Getting away from the USCCB, CNS asked if the Senate bill should be opposed because it does not include the Hyde Amendment.
Casey again refused to respond, saying, “I think we should do everything possible to get a bill passed, and I think we can get there.
The Pennsylvania Democrat said part of the problem in finding an abortion funding compromise is that the exchanges in the bill present a new problem for figuring out how to get abortion funding out of it.
“The difficulty here is we’ve never had an exchange before. It’s something we’ve never had to deal with," he said. “It really is question of what happens to tax dollars in the new exchange and what happens to premium dollars in the exchange."
Meanwhile, in a personal letter written to Casey hand-delivered to his office, Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser pledged to pull the commercials her group is running in Pennsylvania and publicly support Sen. Casey if he commits to opposing health care reform legislation that funds abortion or plans that cover abortion.
She said in the letter that his apparent support for the pro-abortion health care bill threatens to ruin his pro-life legacy and his father’s.
“I have attempted in much of our SBA List’s work to emulate your father’s leadership, especially his articulation of the necessity to protect the weak. My husband left his job to work on your father’s too-short presidential campaign. The Casey name is iconic across the nation. The continuation of that great tradition with your voice is critical,’ she wrote.
In reference to Senator Nelson’s public support for pro-life language, she added, “I know you have the strength to join him in this uncompromising stand, just as your father would have if he was still with us today.”
The letter, provided to LifeNews.com, contains a closing commitment to defend Senator Casey if he fully embraces an uncompromising pro-life position.
“The minute you take the uncompromising stand to oppose health care reform that contains abortion funding, we will be there to defend you, just as we defended your father for his courageous stands in defense of innocent human life," she concluded.
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