Why not supporting the Stupak amendment would have been bad - politically and morally

There have been some arguments made that by passing the Stupak Amendment - allowing prolife Democrats to then vote in their good conscience for the Pelosi healthcare bill - the prolife movement was actually duped, because it brings a bad healthcare bill that much closer to becoming law. Rush Limbaugh, amongst others, has made this argument.

Here are two columns from Tuesday refuting that assertion. It's worth the time to hit the links to read them in full -

William McGurn: The Man Who Made Pelosi Cry 'Uncle' - WSJ.com

But Mr. Stupak stood firm, and Mrs. Pelosi realized something would have to give if she wanted to get a health-care bill passed. So she gave Mr. Stupak his vote—and his victory.

Now, some believe Republicans should have voted "present" on the Stupak amendment, on the grounds that the worse they could make the bill, the harder for Speaker Pelosi to get the magic 218 votes. That's pretty short-sighted, for several reasons. For one thing, in September all but a few Republican House members signed a letter to Speaker Pelosi demanding such a vote. Had Republicans defeated a pro-life amendment they had asked for, they would have paid a dear price for their cynicism.

For another, it's not even clear it would have worked. The Stupak alliance of Democrats was a broad one, from liberals like Minnesota's Jim Oberstar to conservatives like Mississippi's Gene Taylor. The danger of the cynical GOP strategy is that it could easily have backfired, freeing up Democrats to give Mrs. Pelosi her victory—and putting Republicans in the awkward position of being unable to press for funding restrictions they had explicitly defeated.

As it is, Democrats now have to make some decisions that may anger their Planned Parenthood wing. The fight itself will be interesting, judging from a claim by Diana DeGette (D., Col.) in yesterday's Washington Post that 40 Democrats will vote against a final bill unless the Stupak amendment is stripped out. Of course, if it is stripped out, that will put even more pressure on those 64 Democrats who voted for the amendment.

"We won because [the Democrats] need us," says Mr. Stupak. "If they are going to summarily dismiss us by taking the pen to that language, there will be hell to pay. I don't say it as a threat, but if they double-cross us, there will be 40 people who won't vote with them the next time they need us—and that could be the final version of this bill."

Here is the second column

Killing the Stupak Amendment Wouldn't Have Killed the Bill The Weekly Standard

On Saturday night the Democrats narrowly passed a monstrosity of a health-care bill. Some conservatives blamed the National Right to Life Committee. How is that possible?

In order to get enough votes to secure final passage, Nancy Pelosi allowed an up-or-down vote on the Stupak amendment to bar federal funding of abortion through the health-care bill. Rep. John Shadegg (R, Ariz.), who made a bid this year to be Republican minority leader, and Americans for Prosperity urged Republicans to defeat the pro-life measure by voting present. They argued that defeating the amendment could bring down the entire bill:

“(Nancy) Pelosi is speaker and she’s pro abortion every minute of every hour of every day as speaker,” Shadegg said in an interview with POLITICO Saturday evening. “This is a vote to help her move the bill forward.”

In the end the Stupak amendment passed on a 240 to 194 vote. Although at least a handful of Republicans entertained the idea of voting present, Shadegg was the only one to do so. The GOP leadership released a statement that seemed to respond to those who wanted to bring down the amendment. "To be clear, the Stupak-Pitts Amendment's passage is the right thing to do," Representatives Boehner, Cantor, and Pence said in a statement. "We believe you just don’t play politics with life."

There are many problems with the Shadegg/Americans for Prosperity gambit, but the most important one is that it simply wouldn't have worked. The bill would have passed anyway. In fact, in the long-run, defeating Stupak would have hurt chances of defeating Obamacare.

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Strategically, the Stupak amendment has divided the Democrats. Pelosi's decision to allow a vote on it elicited "tears from some veteran [Democratic] female lawmakers."

"Planned Parenthood Federation of America has no choice but to oppose HR 3962," the group declared in a statement, and the Washington Post reports that "Although House liberals voted for the bill with the amendment to keep the process moving forward, Rep. Diana DeGette (Colo.) said she has collected more than 40 signatures from House Democrats vowing to oppose any final bill that includes the amendment -- enough to block passage."

It's going to be exceedingly difficult to strip the Stupak language from the conference report. Passage of the Stupak amendment in the House puts pressure on pro-life senators Ben Nelson and Bob Casey to settle for nothing less than the same language in the Senate bill, but pro-choice senators are vowing to strip the language.

If Nancy Pelosi does double-cross the pro-life Democrats and strip the pro-life language from the conference report, she would almost certainly lose at least 3 of the 42 members who voted both for Stupak amendment and final passage--enough to defeat the bill. So Democrats are left playing a game of chicken.

But if Republicans had voted down the Stupak amendment on Saturday night, they would have taken the issue off the table. "It would have looked extremely cynical," says Ponnuru. According to a House Republican aide, the "only message that would have come out of the Shadegg stunt is that Republicans only want to protect the unborn when they are in charge, but are willing to sacrifice them for political gamesmanship."

Comments

[Mary Devine]

Keep up the prayers to defeat Obamacare. Obamacare will be health care for everyone, similar to all being on Medicaid. Cheap and poor insurance that will have hidden language one way or another against life. It was so good to see that there are some prolife Democrat politians! Pray for them. God bless them!
Mary

[Mary Devine]

I agree that it was necessary to support Stupak. The Democrats finally come out and do something good and even if a present vote was meant to slam dunk the bill it might not have worked or been interpreted that way and there would have been more damage. We must pray that the Blessed Mother can render some unforeseen consequences,but most of all we must pray.
God Bless.
Mary of Helpers of God's Precious Infants!