Democrats betray pro-aborts to keep seats… including Stupak’s
In recent days I’ve received fundraising emails from NARAL and Planned Parenthood aimed at getting Bart Stupak out of office. Meanwhile, according to MSNBC today:
[T]here is still a concern that some important incumbents in districts that they are uniquely suited could call it quits.
At the top of the concern list this week: MI Democrat Bart Stupak… said to be simply exhausted. The criticism he received – 1st from the left, and then from the right – has worn him and his family out. And if he had to make the decision now, he’d probably NOT run.
As of this writing, a bunch of senior Democrats (many of the same ones who twisted his arm on the health care vote) are trying to talk him into running….
The filing deadline in MI is still a month away, but veterans of that state’s politics are skeptical anyone other than Stupak can hold that district in this political climate.
Then there was this gem in Politico April 6:
The prospect of losing 2 House seats in back-to-back special elections next month has sparked a vigorous, behind-the-scenes Democratic effort, designed to avoid an outcome that could lead to panic among the rank and file….
[T]he [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] is working feverishly to prevent a very real scenario in which the 2 top Democrats split the party vote and enable Republican Charles Djou to capture the heavily Democratic seat in Hawaii’s May 22 all-party special election….
[T]he DCCC is providing under-the-radar organizational support to former Rep. Ed Case against Democratic state Sen. Colleen Hanabusa….
EMILY’s List, another Hanabusa supporter, has also been informed that that the DCCC is considering throwing its support to Case.
Guess the following is true, from a commentary in The Nation, April 1:
[T]he Stupak Amendment… to the horror of prochoicers, passed the House in a 240-194 vote… lay[ing] bare the fact that there simply aren’t enough people willing to go to bat for abortion in Congress….
The resounding vote count… was no surprise to Washington insiders on both sides of the issue. They already knew what would soon become plain to everyone else: a Democratic majority is not the same as a prochoice majority.
And many Democrats who entered Congress in the past few elections not only oppose abortion but will work as a bloc to stand in its way.
In fact, the Democratic majority in the House that many found so comforting in the last election was largely won by the party’s decision to embrace socially conservative candidates….
But if prochoice leaders felt beleaguered, the outcome was not so much a reflection of their loss of influence as a painful public display of their longstanding political weakness.
“The conditions that allowed healthcare reform to totally exclude abortion existed before it happened,” says Frances Kissling… who was president of Catholics for a Free Choice for 25 years. “The difference now is that everyone knows we’re powerless.”
[Graphic via HuffPo]

Last time that I checked Stupak’s position during the reform debate was “I’m not paying for your abortion; we have better things to put our money towards” not “You can’t have abortions.” He wasn’t standing in anyone’s way- not funding something and outright banning something in the middle of the debate are two different things.
For someone to say that he was intentionally trying to screw women over is a lie- what is with people who genuinely believe that pro-lifers wake up every morning determined to beat voting rights, equal pay, maternal care, and other such anti-misogyny measures to death?
Let me speak on behalf of pro-lifers when I say: this is not about hating women. We do not hate women. Say it with me: we do not hate women. One more time: we do not hate women.
Why can’t people just accept that- gasp!- we disagree but it’s not because we’re “teh evil anti-choicerz!”
We good to go?
Fascinating stuff, Jill. It is especially gratifying to see Stupak getting beat up from both sides. Had he chosen to do what was right rather than doing what was expedient, he would likely be in a good position for the upcoming election. As things stand now, he’s toast.
HA HA HA HA! Bye bye Bart! Next time stand for whats right.
na na na naa na na na naaa hey hey hey goood bye
na na na naa na na na naaa hey hey hey goood bye
couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
He tried to save his political a$$ by playing both sides and lost…
his soul.
Guess it doesn’t pay to sit on the fence too long; you might get a spike up your you-know-what.
I still don’t understand what happened to Bart Stupak. Why did he stand firm for so long only to collapse at the last moment? Ben Nelson had collapsed in the same way before him, so it’s not like he didn’t have time to reflect on the unfavorable political consequences. Anyway, if his stance (before his fall) was as principled as he had said it was, then the politics don’t even matter.
“Had he chosen to do what was right rather than doing what was expedient, he would likely be in a good position for the upcoming election”
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Amen, Tom. And he’d have that little thing called “peace of mind” and soul knowing that he stood for Life and did the right thing.
Posted by: Vannah at April 7, 2010 9:40 PM
“Let me speak on behalf of pro-lifers when I say: this is not about hating women. We do not hate women. Say it with me: we do not hate women. One more time: we do not hate women.
We good to go?”
————————————————–
I DO NOT HATE WOMEN!
I hate the misandristic attitudes directed towards men in general and conservative males in particular by the old guard femi-nazis and the avant garde feministas, the majority of whom are progressive/liberal/humanists.
They are female chauvenistic bigots who hold only arrogant disdain for the mere existence of the pre-natal child much less his/her rights unless they make a ‘choice’ to unilaterally and autocratically extend mercy to the fruit of their own womb.
They are all for physical autonomy, but hypocritically and duplicitously dismiss any claim the pre-natal child may possess to humanity and accompanying value and rights.
yor bro ken
If you persist in straddling the abortion fence in hopes of perpetuating your political ambitions, then it may eventually result in your being tarred and feathered by your own contradictory rhetoric and ridden out of town on that self same rail.
In my dirt bike days we referred to that painful gas tank slapping/cajone crushing experience as the dreaded ‘flying W’. Oh that my legs were just a few inches longer so that my feet might make contact with the ground before my maleness mashed against the unyielding metal tank.
I get a mental picture of the mad damn pelosi carrying that gargantuan gavel and all her boy toys obseqiously trailing in the train of her resplendent wretchedness/retchedness.
The ‘hammer’ was NOT just for show. It was more than symbolic.
Just needed a muslim ‘cresent’ [sickle] to acurately accesorize her political statement.
It is the absolute reverse of Jesus triumphantly relieving the ‘bent one’ of the stolen keys and liberating her/him/it of it’s/his/her captives past, past, present and future.
Mad damn pelousy and her entourage of eunuchs are all about making slaves of free people.
yor bro ken
pro choice “values”? What values?
And I’ll probably send something like a $10 contribution to both PRO LIFE candidates going for Bart’s seat. I have a cousin who is not from Michigan either and he sent a contribution to the one of the REAL pro life candidates vying for Bart’s seat this year.
And instead of Judas, I have come to see Bart as more of a Pontius Pilate: he could have saved at least SOME babies, but chose to “Wash” his hands of this by voting FOR and not against the health care.