Stupak: Democrat Chair Says Party Wants to Force Americans to Fund Abortions

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Mar 12, 2010   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Stupak: Democrat Chair Says Party Wants to Force Americans to Fund Abortions

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
March 12
, 2010

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — Democrats in Congress have shut down any attempt of cutting the massive abortion funding and promotion found in the Senate health care bill.

Highlighting how his party colleagues have shut down his attempt to stop it, Rep. Bart Stupak says in a new interview that a key chairman said Democrats want to force Americans to fund abortions.

In an interview with Marquette, Michigan radio station WKQS’ Mark & Walk morning show, Stupak described a conversation he had with Rep. Henry Waxman.

Waxman is one of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top lieutenants and one of the main lawmakers responsible for crafting the final language of the government-run health care bill.

Stupak described how he gave him language to ban abortion funding with the hopes that it would be included so he and several other pro-life Democrats could possibly support the health care bill.

"I gave him the language. He came back a little while later and said, ‘But we want to pay for abortions.’ I said, ‘Mr. Chairman, that’s — we disagree. We don’t do it now, we’re not going to start,’" Stupak related.

"’But we think should,’" Stupak said Waxman told him, according to a Fox News writeup of the interview.

Stupak continued: "I said, ‘Well, I’m sorry but the House has spoken. We had that debate. We won 240-190. You forced the vote, a vote we won fair and square and we’re not gonna, this is what it is. If you want to move health care keep current law.’"

Stupak elaborated in an interview with National Review.

“They’re ignoring me,” he says of pro-abortion Democratic leaders. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue."

The pro-life stalwart is also alarmed that some of his Stupak dozen colleagues are fracturing and coming under "enormous" pressure.

“I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”

“I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he told National Review. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.”

Ultimate the whole ordeal is "a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”

Stupak goes on in the interview to say he wil stay in the Democratic Party believes abortion funding will only be stopped when Republicans take back Congress.

The pro-abortion movement has always hoped to overturn the current law, known as the Hyde amendment, that stops abortion funding in the bills funding the Health and Human Services Department but doesn’t apply to the government-run health care plan.

Laurie Rubiner, the vice president of public policy and advocacy at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, admitted last year that her group wants to reverse Hyde.

"Abortion is a legal medical procedure in this country, and therefore Planned Parenthood believes it should be part of the health care system," she said.

She says it is wrong for pro-life advocates to "insist that, if there is a public option, there be a strict and total ban on abortion coverage," adding "this is ridiculous."

Rubiner also admits that Planned Parenthood wants to eventually overturn the Hyde Amendment to prohibits taxpayer-funding of abortion in the Medicaid program.

"For many years there has been a ban on the use of federal funds to pay for abortions" and, while "we vehemently disagree with this policy," "we understand that this is the law of the land and until we have the political ability to change it, we have to compromise," she writes.

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