Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada did not include Rep. Bart Stupak’s House-passed amendment banning federal funding of abortions in the health care reform bill now before the upper chamber. Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, has warned for weeks that not including the abortion funding ban will push several dozen pro-life House Democrats to oppose the legislation when it comes back to the House in a conference report for a final vote.
The Reid bill’s looser language on abortion has already roused the ire of pro-life groups, who worked hard to pass the Stupak amendment. The National Right to Life organization is among those not buying into Reid’s changes:
The Reid bill establishes a big new federal health insurance program, the public option (although now referred to in Reid’s bill as the “community health insurance option”). The bill authorizes (on page 118) the federal Secretary of Health and Human Services to require coverage of any and all abortions throughout the public option program. This would be federal government funding of abortion, no matter how hard they try to disguise it.
