At the last minute Representative Bart Stupak (D, Mich.) was successful in getting Speaker Pelosi and the House Democratic leadership to approve an amendment that would prohibit federal spending on abortion added to its nationalized healthcare bill passed and sent to the Senate over the weekend. But a senior Democrat says that the Stupak amendment will be stripped from the bill if the Senate returns the bill for approval.
Of course, the only reason that the House healthcare bill was passed out of the House at all was because of the Stupak Amendment, still left-wingers in Congress are vowing to strip the final bill of one of the only measures that appeals to moderates.
Far left Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D, Fla.) has vowed that the anti-abortion amendment will be gone by the time the bill comes up for a final vote after the Senate debate. Pro-abortion activist and Democratic Congressman from Colorado Diana DeGette has been passing around a letter to her far left colleagues vowing not to vote for a future healthcare bill that does not include abortion funding. She has announced that 40 House Democrats have signed her pledge.
The truth is that the House bill has bare support and without the Stupak Amendment it couldn’t have passed.
However, the vows of abortion advocates in Congress also proves another thing, here. It proves that “no” doesn’t always mean “no.” The Pelosicare version of Obamacare now says no abortion funding, but that is meaningless the next time the bill comes up for a vote. Congress may pass a nationalized healthcare system that does not include abortion funding but that doesn’t mean anything to a future Congress. Once healthcare become a federal matter, any future Congress can change the rules anytime it feels like it and slide abortion funding right into the rules. Maybe in the middle of night on a Saturday… just like Pelosi did to pass the bill this time.
And therein lies the problem. No matter what this bill says now, the matter is not and can never be settled. Federalized healthcare will be a permanent political football used to solicit votes from favored special interests all the way until the day that the federal government is bankrupted by its onerous financial burdens. No abortion funding may be the rule today, but next time they just might get it through.
It’s all because no leftist idea ever dies. It only sits quietly until another push secures victory. No never means no to a leftist.
Warner Todd Huston’s thoughtful commentary, sometimes irreverent often historically based, is featured on many websites such as Breitbart.com, among many, many others. He has also written for several history magazines, has appeared on numerous TV and radio shows.
