President Obama, rallying last-minute support for landmark health-care legislation nearing a crucial vote in the House, announced Sunday that he will issue an executive order after passage attesting that the bill is consistent with longstanding restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortions.
The arrangement won the support of a key bloc of anti-abortion House Democrats, whose leader, Rep. Bart Stupak D-Mich.), said at a news conference, “I’m pleased to announce we have an agreement.”
Appearing with Stupak were half a dozen other holdout Democrats. With them on board, “we’re well past” the 216 votes needed in the House to approve the health-care legislation, Stupak said.
Suckers. Sell out for an executive order (which can be reversed at will). If the pro-choice crowd thinks this is not objectionable, and they pro-life crowd does too, which side is getting rolled?
The RC bishops are not impressed:
And, of course, EOs have the force of law only within the executive branch and only to the extent they are consistent with legislation. So if the legislation allows public funding for abortions (as many say it does), we’ll have public funding for abortions.
Sorry – link here
Egad. Selling out one’s principles for only an illusory bowl of pottage.
How sad. Stupak had a moment of opportunity to deliver principled opposition and to offer some proof that “pro-life Democrat” could still be something other than a punchline or source of derisive snickers. Now the only question is whether PLINO or the verb form of Stupak becomes part of our informal lexicon first.
Stupak should and those accepting this compromise should have learned a lesson from what happened to Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska.
The compromising politicians cited in this “impass breaking deal” could go from positions of popularity to positions of unpopularity based upon negative perceptions of both their personal and political ethics and the ability of political ‘strong-armers’ and ‘enticers’ to cause them to forget those ethics.
An already disillusioned electorate will probably become more disillusioned. Not just because the monolithic and poorly designed health bill passed, but because of the unethical behavior of the politicians who were ‘bought’ and ‘strong-armed.’
If it were just a simple matter of 70% or more of the voters supporting this monolithic and complex health plan, that would a reflection of the Constitutional democratic ( small “d”) process reflecting the will of the people of our Republic. But it’s not. Its a matter of a small majority, which includes the above mentioned compromisers of ethics, imposing their will on the remaining ‘almost a majority.’
That folks is called ‘the dictatorship of the simple majority.’
It was less than 80 years ago that a civilized nation was transformed into an uncivilized ‘beast of a nation’ by a political party that held a mere 33% of the political votes cast in a parliamentary election.
We are a different nation with a different history, but our Constitution with its Bill of Rights and political traditions can also be manipulated by ‘clever politicians’ who do not represent the majority “will of the people.” And the latest polls indicate that this monolithic healthcare proposal flies squarely in the face of “the will of the people”as it is definitely posed as structured and presented by Obama/Pelosi/Reid to that majority “will.”
Further, Presidential Executive orders do not necessarily express “the will of the people,” they represent the “will” of a person who has been elected to serve a four year term of office.
If the ‘promise’ or “will” of one individual can ‘set in place,’ a massive and seemingly permanent change in law that affects all Americans at the most basic level without representation from the majority of the American people, then a dangerous precedent will be set that will bode ill for our Republic.
Checkmate.
Bart? Judas Iscariot called just now. “I got thirty pieces of silver out of my deal,” he told me. “But that Stupak idiot only got a worthless scrap of paper for his.”
I didn’t understand then and I don’t now how committed Christians could have voted for Obama and Democrats for National positions.
Stupak is not stupid. He only wanted to appear sufficiently pro-life to gain the pro-life vote to add to his Democrat base and get elected. By holding out “valiantly” he thought he’d gain “cover.” The fix was in all along. He had to be given a sop that did not really threaten taxpayer-funded abortions (otherwise Pelousy would lost 40 feminist Democrat votes) but that was “enough” to convince pro-lifers that Stupak did all he could.
But the EO is transparently useless and won’t fool anyone. It didn’t fool the pro-aborts (though I see that NOW has issued a half-hearted complaint) and it isn’t fooling pro-lifers. If one reads the text of the promised EO, it simply says, “Hey, like I’ve [BHO] been trying to tell you all along, the Senate bill doesn’t fund abortions with tax dollars because the Hyde Amendment is in force. I hereby direct my administration to comply with the already existing rules against funding abortions.”
So the EO says there never was a problem, the rules against taxpayer funding were already in place and the EO just underlines them. So either Stupak was concerned about nothing all this time, the Senate bill was never a problem and the EO confirms that reading.
Or the Senate bill was a problem, Stupak was right to be concerned and he’s caved with absolutely nothing done to correct the problem.
The Catholic bishops’ lawyers (as linked in an earlier comment) beg to differ: decades of jurisprudence simply REQUIRE taxpayer funding of indigent people’s abortions and any court would be obliged to interpret the Senate bill that way when cases are brought (as they will be) UNLESS Congress expressly forbids taxpayer funding.
That’s what the whole debate was about: absent express prohibition, Roe v. Wade and its subsequent interpretation makes TFA inevitable. And the Hyde Amendment does not apply to the Senate bill, not matter what the Liar-in-Chief says about it.
Stupak knew what he was doing. He’s a snake, not a fool.
It does show that Obama is more pro-life than I would have expected.
Still, watch abortion rates decrease after health care reform is passed.
Yes, Obama is as “pro-life” as he is pro-transparency via C-
Span…oh, wait…hmm…Obama is as “pro-life” as he is against Guantanamo incarcerations…oh, wait…hmm…Obama is as “pro-life” as he is against the Patriot Act…oh, wait…hmm…I just don’t know what to think. /sarcasm
Reported at Instapundit – I hope this isn’t correct – as wrong and short-sighted as Rep. Stupak’s decision was, I hope it wasn’t for money:
The EO is meaningless, since Federal Law already prohibits government funding of abortion. And as John Wilkins points out, the passage of the overall bill will drive the abortion rates down even further as pre-natal and delivery costs become more affordable for low income women, for whom abortion has thus far been the more affordable option.
Federal law does not prohibit government funding of abortion – the Hyde Amendment, which must be passed every year with the Appropriations bills, prohibits funding of abortion. So one year it doesn’t get passed and what happens? Pregnancy is not a health issue, since it is not a disease, so I don’t know why anyone would think rates would go down, unless we are now paying for the “morning after” pill, which is chemical abortion. The US Catholic bishops, long supporters of health care reform, have looked at this bill (perhaps more in depth than you have, John Wilkins) and determined that tax payers will be funding abortions. Did anyone see NARAL or NOW protesting the bill’s passage yesterday like they did Stupak’s first amendment? No – you know why? Because this bill does nothing to stop taxpayers from funding abortions.
I’m not sure I buy the marginal economics underlying the claim that this bill will reduce abortions by making pre-natal/delivery costs more affordable. Most estimates of the lifetime cost of raising a kid fall in the $150-350K range. Assuming a high-cost pregnancy clocking in between $15-20K, you’re still only talking a 10%-ish discount at best. Plus the assumption that said women doing the hard math and running the budget numbers to test affordability of n+1 kid seems highly questionable. More likely, it’s not the pregnancy per se they don’t want – it’s the kid and the attendant parenthood. Of course, data from countries offering more generous healthcare redistributive schemes don’t have a great track record on abortion. And all of this is moot, as the inevitable subsidization that will occur should help erode any pesky incremental pro-lifeness that the bill happens to generate.
RE: “It does show that Obama is more pro-life than I would have expected.”
A typically gaseously deconstructionist statement.
No it doesn’t show that at all. He’s pro-murder of babies. Always has been, and unless he gets converted always will be.
Scott, I wish you were right about federal funding of abortion being prohibited, but that is simply not the case across the board, especially under the policies of our current President. There are billions of dollars in this bill that are not constrained by the Hyde Amendment and that NARAL and NOW fully intend to use for abortion services. In addition to this, to quote the USCCB, “federal subsidies will be used to help expand access nationwide to abortion coverage.”
The idea that the potential for lower-cost prenatal and perinatal care will counteract the increased availability and affordability of abortion and actually lower abortion rates sounds like wishful thinking. I’d love to believe you’re right, but that seems like a remote hope under the circumstances.