Eugenics on display: Abortion in healthcare saves money; Dem pro-lifers wearing down
There is lots of fodder in this National Review Online piece yesterday.
Sitting in an airport, on his way home to MI, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with NRO. “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 1 or 2 of my 12. 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.”…
According to Stupak, that group of 12 pro-life House Democrats – the “Stupak dozen” – has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other 11 are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “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.”
Stupak says he also doesn’t trust the “Slaughter solution,” a legislative maneuver being bandied about on Capitol Hill as a way to pass the Senate bill in the House without actually voting on it. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” he says. “I don’t have a warm-and-fuzzy feeling about what I’m hearing.”
Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”
What are Democratic leaders saying? “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing,” Stupak says. “Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue – come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about.”
If Obamacare passes, Stupak says, it could signal the end of any meaningful role for pro-life Democrats within their own party. “It would be very, very hard for someone who is a right-to-life Democrat to run for office,” he says. “I won’t leave the party. I’m more comfortable here and still believe in a role within it for the right-to-life cause, but this bill will make being a pro-life Democrat much more difficult. They don’t even want to debate this issue. We’ll probably have to wait until the Republicans take back the majority to fix this.”
“Throughout this debate, even when the House leaders have acknowledged us, it’s always been in a backhanded way,” he laments. “I’m telling the others to hold firm, and we’ll meet next week, but I’m disappointed in my colleagues who said they’d be with us and now they’re not. It’s almost like some right-to-life members don’t want to be bothered. They just want this over.”
And the politics of the issue are pretty rough. “This has really reached an unhealthy stage,” Stupak says. “People are threatening ethics complaints on me. On the left, they’re really stepping it up. Every day, from Rachel Maddow to the Daily Kos, it keeps coming. Does it bother me? Sure. Does it change my position? No.”
[Photo of Stupak via Newsweek]
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.
If “money is their hang-up,” this should be ringing all kinds of alarm bells about the new maternity and other home visit and “education” programs that have been proposed in the bill. If the bottom line is money not people, just imagine the anti-life agenda these programs have the potential to promote.
Like pushing eugenics for “imperfect” unborn babies? (abortion) or trying to convince someone with three children that 3 is enough? (even if they are Catholic and WANT more).
What was that again about keeping the government out of “personal” decisions?
Isn’t every one fed up with a legal procedure to a couple’s right…not just a woman’s right, as every pregnancy requires a man to happen…a couple’s right to choose being THE BARGAINING CHIP for making IMPORTANT decisions affecting all Americans?
yeah. that’s why it should be removed from the bargaining table. What’s be chosen, afterall? It’s them (or just her) CHOOSING to kill or not kill their/her child. That should NEVER be a legal and accepted choice to make. Ever. So let’s get rid of it.
@Judy: The right to choose what? To kill your child? (I know, I know, “the timing and spacing of your children.” Which is achieved by…killing the children who are timed “wrong.”)
I won’t be “fed up” with this issue until abortion is ended as a legal practice in our country. And honestly, after that, I’m wondering where we whould take the fight to next. The US isn’t the only country with an abortion problem.
Judy,
Yes, I am disappointed. As I mentioned on another thread, this bill has somehow morphed from a monster healthcare bill to “an abortion bill”. No doubt a clever move by the Democrats to divert America’s attention and win over dissenting Democrats. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favor of abortion funding and I think it’s a worthy fight. But the Democrats can no longer see the forest for the trees.
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God bless Mr. Stupak.
Dear Lord,
Please give him the wisdom and fortitude to continue the work he is doing for the greater good of our country. Amen.
This has echoes of Nazi Germany. “If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. So children are to be MURDERED to save the state money.
A word of warning to all Catholic politicians:
Any Catholic who votes for taxpayer funded abortion incurs a sentence of automatic excommunication (canon 1398) of Catholic Canon Law.
Judy, are you referring to the “men” who threaten to leave their pregnant girlfriends or beat them in order to get them to kill their children? Because a man who does not want his child to die can only beg and plead, he has no right to choose.
Yes, I am fed up with killing babies being legal.
I am fed up with the fact that I can’t find a doctor who wouldn’t be perfectly willing to help me shred my child to pieces before he or she is born, or give me a to take every day so that I would never even know I might conceive and be complicit in that child’s death, all without telling me that drug could kill my unborn baby. I am fed up with not being able to trust that my medical practitioners want what’s best for my baby when they offer tests for him or her in the womb–tests which offer no benefits but carry the chance of killing that child.
I am fed up with the idea that when I buy insurance, or pay taxes, or do business with a company, that money may be donated or used directly to help people who rip the arms and legs off of babies, and help them reach their goal of doing that more often.
I am fed up with abortion. And I vote. And I plan to have as many children as God gives me–and they’ll vote too.
Dear Lord,
Please help us by dismantling this bill, help us to save all the babies that will be murdered by this bill. Please help Bart Stupak, don’t allow them to destroy this man and his principles. God please expose every dirty, rotten, corrupt, pro-death politician in this entire debacle. I ask you to save our nation from the blood thirsty clutches of PP, NARAL and the Demoncratic Party of Death. We ask in your precious and holy name, the name of Jesus Christ, the name above every name that you save our nation. We pray you will destroy the power of the wicked one, the father of lies, the one who comes to rob, steal KILL and DESTROY. Amen.
Thanks to all of you prolifers for standing up for the innocent unborn. I do want to thank those of you who are not Christians for your good thoughts as well. I pray blessings for you and your families. Especially you Xalisae. My heart is so wounded for this nation. I am sick at heart and sick to my stomach reading what Mr. Stupak said is happening to him and what Waxman said to him on the other thread.