I can't look at this as anything but a poison pill amendment. There is already a well established law forbidding abortion funding and all of these Congress critters know it. This is an excuse to vote against and nothing more.

"there there needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we're not changing the status quo."

that is a completely BS position (like most of obama's triangulatin' republican ass-licking positions). The status quo should be changed: the Hyde Amendment should be rescinded.

A woman's right to an abortion is a constitutional right as affirmed by the Supreme Court. The government has no business making value judgments on the decision or in anyway prejudicing a woman's ability to exercise her Constitutional rights. If the government is paying for health care, they pay for ALL legal health care - PERIOD! No cherry picking a person's rights according the inanity of republicans/conservatives so-called belief system, which is in realty nothing more than a subjugation and oppression system. (If that were the case, I want 50% the US military funding cut-off immediately as I find the use of my taxes for that criminal endeavor an abhorrent abomination.)

It is effing astounding the number of cretins in Washington and among the population that have no idea what the principles of the US Constitution are, particularly equality for all.
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Casey's position is a good example of why Pennsylvanians like him: he's pro-life, but not doctrinaire about it. More to the point, he clearly does not believe that life ends at birth, as appears to be the case w/most self-professed pro-lifers. Pro-life should mean caring for people *after* birth, which means support for real health care reform. It also explains why Casey is opposed to the death penalty, while most, again self-professed, pro-lifers strongly support it.

-Z

I have read several accounts of what is in the Stupak ammendment, and they all say different things, so getting a grip on it is difficult. Ambinder had an interview with Stupak, and in it he said that insurance companies in the exchange must offer two coverages - exactly the same except that one would have abortion coverage and the other wouldn't. Folks paying premiums with subsidies would have to choose the one without the abortion coverage. This does not seem like a change from the status quo to me.

We've already gone through this with the GOP, but has anyone confirmed whether or not any of the plans offered to Members of Congress cover abortion, or if those providers cover abortion?

I am never ever, in my lifetime, supporting another pro-life dem. I'm going to make sure the party knows it too.

They can all kiss my ass.

Stupak: Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't Roe v Wade still THE LAW OF THE LAND? Don't the fundamental rights in Roe v Wade still apply? Yes, Congress can pass laws defining how it works, but isn't abortion still a legal right? And that Congress cannot pass a law defunding it unless they also somehow overrule Roe v Wade?

I probably don't know what I am talking about, but that is the question about Stupak, in my mind.

Stupak deserves to be post-term aborted. What a fucking douchebag for authoring such an afront to American women and the carrier's choice. That guy had better never be within 10 feet of me, and that's a promise..

There's some dangerously random rhetoric here. So for Obama "the status quo is untenable" when it comes to healthcare, yet "the president doesn't believe health care reform >should change the status quo

Somehow the last part of my post got cut off. What I meant to say: I know what they mean, but they should really know better than to talk of these things in identical terms.

gsp:
Ambinder had an interview with Stupak, and in it he said that insurance companies in the exchange must offer two coverages - exactly the same except that one would have abortion coverage and the other wouldn't.

"Must"? That's a good warning not to trust a virulently anti-abortion congressman for reassurance about the effects of his expressly anti-abortion amendment. If he actually said "must" then he's just lying (and if he didn't, he's being misleading) -- his amendment allows companies to offer two versions of their coverage, but it in no way requires it. Offering different versions isn't cost-free. Considering their history with non-mandated procedures, with the option of not covering it, what do you think most insurance companies will do?

Rob: Congressmen are covered by the Federal Health Benefits Plan, which has been prohitibed from covering elective abortions for many years. So if one of them knocked up one of his secretaries or assistants, he would be on the hook for the cost of the abortion. (I've always wondered how many of them have actually paid for their girlfriends abortions - you know it has to have happened!)

Redshift: I doubt Stupak actually knows what is in his own amendment, and I'm positive a bunch of the conservaDems who supported it don't know either. It was written by the Catholic Church, I doubt most of the supporters have even read it, or would understand it if they did (which, of course, makes it like the vast majority of legislation.)

I have long been of the view that most of the mouth-foaming anti-abortion politicians really don't give a rat's patootie about pro-life, they just know the issue works for them with their low-information consititutents, so they continue to milk it. One fact in support of this position is the almost universal support for the rape-incest exemption. There is not way to make a moral case for the exception within the context of a pro-life argument, unless you are going to maintain that a fetus conceived from a rape is not a human life. By supporting this exception, the case they are actually making is that any woman who engages in sex as anything but a something that must be endured in order to create a desired pregnancy is a slut or a whore, and therefore deserves to be punished by an unwanted pregnancy. Oppositon to abortion and gay marriages are cheap outrages for the wingnuts, something that revs up the base by allowing them to feel superior to 'the other'.