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Friday, March 12, 2010, 5:20 PM

Congressman Stupak agrees with your assessment, Steve. From an interview today with National Review Online:

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.”

(Via: Justin Taylor)

6 Comments

    Sean
    March 12th, 2010 | 5:59 pm

    Well, uh, doesn’t universal health care by its nature require abortion or some other measure to reduce the number of poor folks it covers?

    uberVU - social comments
    March 12th, 2010 | 6:17 pm

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by ROFTERS: The Stupak 12 and the Future of the Democratic Party http://bit.ly/a8ZdM0 (Stupak seems to agree – http://bit.ly/anQRkT)…

    Thomas More Hopkins
    March 12th, 2010 | 11:19 pm

    I’m confused. When was there ever a meaningful role for pro-lifers in the Democratic party? How can one be a pro-life Democrat? You are either a bad Democrat or a bad pro-lifer.

    HomoMysterium
    March 13th, 2010 | 11:32 am

    If a pro-life Democrat ran in my district, I would probably vote for him.

    Mike
    March 13th, 2010 | 12:32 pm

    My Congressman is Dan Lipinski, Democrat of Illinois. He is one of the Stupak 12. He has my respect and admiration. And my vote for as long as he runs.

    I met him recently at a local “Quiz Night,” which was being run to raise money for the local high school band. I told him then that I appreciated him taking a stand for life, and he said that he was glad to hear from me, because he certainly hears a lot from the other side.

    Joe DeVet
    March 14th, 2010 | 10:54 pm

    In the article referred to here, Steve makes the comment that there are many sensible proposals being made about health care. (His thesis is that the abortion thing will cause these “good” proposals to go down the tubes.)

    “Good proposals on health care???” Name me one.

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