House Democrats fail to attach hostile amendments to pro-life riders
Pro-life politicos were pleasantly surprised yesterday when House Democrats failed to attach hostile amendments to two pro-life riders that were part of the Financial Services Appropriations bill, which passed 228-195.
During committee debate, House Pro-Choice Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Louise Slaughter expressed her disdain for both the Harris Amendment, which ensures Multi-State Plans under Obamacare do not cover elective abortions, and the DC Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal funding for most abortions. So did the White House in a statement, and District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton squawked about DC Hyde during the Rule debate.
Even had they not publicly griped, Democrats as a matter of course add hostile amendments to these annual pro-life riders, even if it’s obvious they’ll lose. (The amendments, if passed, would gut the riders.) They like to showboat.
But yesterday the hostile amendments never materialized. Why?
Abortion activists can’t walk and chew gum?
This was a calculated decision, because even though yesterday was a big day for abortion proponents in the Senate, there were certainly enough members in their cabal to stir trouble in the House.
Yesterday the Senate held a vote on the dubbed “Not My Boss’s Business” bill, which sought to overturn the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision. Abortion proponents considered this a a great opportunity to advance the “war on women” meme, even if passage was impossible. Never mind the House, the bill needed 60 votes to break the Republican filibuster in the Senate and failed, 56-43.
Also yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee debated the inaptly named “Women’s Health Protection Act,” which would invalidate all state laws that limit access to abortion in any way – parental notification, waiting periods, clinic regulations, etc.
This is another pro-abortion bill that stands zero chance of making it to the president’s desk.
While abortion proponents obviously wanted to highlight offensive rather than defensive moves yesterday, they still could have done both.
But they didn’t.
It’s really about abortion funding, but shhh
The working theory among pro-lifers on the Hill is abortion proponents were afraid if they forced a vote on abortion funding with their hostile amendments, it would show their true colors and detract from their contraception and women’s health messaging.
The pro-abortion agenda is indeed to make taxpayers fund abortion. But they didn’t want to muddy the messaging yesterday.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
A leader of the pro choice caucus named Slaughter? Oh, the irony!
The momentum has clearly shifted drastically in the last few years. Don’t let up on the gas pedal folks. Let’s keep them on their heels and in retreat!
I don’t understand the posturing and maneuvers concerning bills and amendments that will never pass.
To my mind, it is the debate that matters, in the Congress and in the culture. When we talk about life, we win. Abortion only thrives in the silence.
If I were paid by the abortion industry to legislate for abortion, I would hide in the silence…. talking about “contraception” and “health,” and hope to distract the efforts to restrict abortion. I would slide weasel language into bills that would open cracks for abortion funding, and hope that no one noticed until too late.
Eleanor Holmes Norton is a piece of work. She was a clinic escort (perhaps she still is). I heard her speak many years ago. This was when I was rethinking my position on abortion and was on the fence. Like many hardcore aborts she was dismissive of abortion as a solution to unplanned pregnancy. She said “black males are unadoptable.” Seriously! That’s something a Klansman would say, and of course its just not true. But nobody thought that was a horrible thing to say except me. Some proaborts are actually nice people but after I heard her say that I’ve disliked her.
Wow phillymiss. I realized she is cold-blooded pro-abort but a clinic escort? Really? And “black males are unadoptable”. What a terribly racist statement.
She said “black males are unadoptable.” Seriously! That’s something a Klansman would say…
That is incredible! EHN is a black woman… Is she really that full of racial self-loathing? Even if she believes that no one will adopt black children, her only solution is to kill them?
Black children are lovable and adoptable. A family in our parish adopted a boy seven or eight years ago. He is a big’un, sweet, quiet and active — he makes me think of the Michael Oher character in The Blind Side. This family recently adopted an infant black girl. Both kids came through an agency in Georgia.
Uh Eleanor, wasn’t your father or grandfather a black male? There has to be a black male somewhere in your ancestry.
“At the time Roe was decided there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations we don’t want to have too many of”
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg NYT Magazine, July 7, 2009.
Is this the reason Norma McCorvey, homeless, alcoholic, drug addicted…and pregnant, was selected by Weddington and Coffey as a client? Someone easily manipulated who couldn’t read half of what was put in front of her or question what she was told to sign. Is this just one of the populations the elitists wouldn’t want “to have too many of”?
Oh and it helped that she was “raped”. Maybe that’s why Coffey and Weddington didn’t question her ever changing “rape” story.