I’ve got to give credit where credit’s due. And when it comes to keeping objections to abortion coverage in federal healthcare bills in the spotlight, a group of principled pro-life Democrats led by Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan has played an increasingly important role.
President Obama and Democratic leaders clearly recognize that taxpayer-funded abortion may be a bridge too far even for moderate pro-choicers, so you’d think they would try to take the issue off the table. Instead, they’ve consistently, um, not spoken the truth about abortion funding in the various bills, apparently counting on media complicity and public indifference or ignorance of the matter.
This doesn’t look to be a winning strategy. In fact, continuing opposition from pro-life Democratic legislators could contribute to the failure of the House bill. Nancy Pelosi et al. are no doubt counting heads now to prevent that, but at the moment, it looks like a real possibility.
But, aside from the voting counting in the House chamber, I don’t think Pelosi et al. realize how much this issue is muting a large segment of religious Americans who might otherwise be vocal supporters of their efforts. In fact, a hypothetical orthodox Catholic could favor every other aspect of the House bill, and still actively oppose it because of abortion coverage. I’m not implying, of course, that abortion coverage is the only reason Catholics could have for opposing the bill. But most of the other objections would be based on prudential judgments rather than on non-negotiable moral principles. (See Sam Gregg’s terrific piece on these points.)
Is taxpayer funding for abortion so important to the Democratic leadership that they are willing to risk the passage of their landmark legislation to maintain it? That’s not only a strange hierarchy of values; it doesn’t seem like good politics.