Positions On Abortion In Overhaul Measure Begin To Harden
Positions On Abortion In Overhaul Measure Begin To Harden
October 1, 2009
By: Kasie Hunt and Billy House
House Democrats on both sides of the abortion debate Wednesday were hardening their positions about whether final language in a healthcare bill should include greater protections to ensure federal money is not used to pay for abortions.
Positions On Abortion In Overhaul Measure Begin To Harden
October 1, 2009
By: Kasie Hunt and Billy House
House Democrats on both sides of the abortion debate Wednesday werehardening their positions about whether final language in a healthcarebill should include greater protections to ensure federal money is notused to pay for abortions.
Leaders of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus -- which claims 190 members -- decided they are unwilling to go any further in what they say is already a compromise on their part on the issue, said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., one of its co-chairs.
"This is a healthcare bill. This is not a bill about abortion," said DeGette, who is on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
DeGette said the caucus' leaders, who include Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, agreed during a meeting Wednesday to stick to an amendment sponsored by Rep. Lois Capps, D-Calif., in the House healthcare bill approved by Energy and Commerce.
But she said they are not willing to go any further.
That language would require that any health insurance exchange would have to offer at least one plan that covers abortion services and at least one that does not.
The amendment also stipulates that the government can place no requirements on public plans to either restrict or require abortion coverage.
Opponents of the amendment argue that subsidies given to low-income people to buy health insurance would amount to federal dollars paying for abortion. "The simple fact is that under the Capps language, the U.S. Treasury will be permitted to issue checks to abortion clinics to reimburse for abortion on demand for the first time in decades," Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., wrote in a letter sent Monday to House leaders. It was signed by 100 Republicans and a number of Democrats.
DeGette said abortion-rights Democrats "compromised enough by agreeing to an amendment."
Stupak, who is leading anti-abortion House Democrats' efforts to increase restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion in the healthcare overhaul, spoke with President Obama about the issue and was given a meeting with House Speaker Pelosi earlier this month to work on a solution. Stupak met with Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman this week in an attempt to negotiate a compromise proposal that would assuage anti-abortion concerns.
Stupak said he expected Waxman would come back with legislative language in the coming weeks and that negotiations would continue. Other Energy and Commerce Committee Democrats from both sides of the abortion divide also met with Stupak and Waxman, Stupak said.
If he does not reach an agreement with Waxman before the bill emerges from the Rules Committee, Stupak said he will insist on his preferred amendment -- modeled on the Hyde Amendment, an appropriations rider that prohibits federal funding for abortion -- to be put to a vote on the House floor.
He had previously threatened to vote against the healthcare overhaul if he was not allowed to offer his amendment.