The Stupak amendment blocking abortion funding has become the hot button of the left, replacing (for now) the fight over the public option.
As President Obama suggested he doesn’t think the measure belongs in the bill, reproductive rights groups are mobilizing to make sure the amendment doesn’t make it any farther in the process.
“This is a middle class abortion ban and I don’t think women are going to accept it,” said Laurie Rubiner, Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s vice president of policy.
“It was a step backwards for us,” she told TPMDC, lamenting the late-night vote.
Rubiner pushed back against lawmakers who say pro-choice groups didn’t do enough in the fight, saying Planned Parenthood alone sent more than 300,000 emails to Congress and made 50,000 calls as lawmakers considered health care.
“Did they hear from us Friday night as bishops met behind closed doors with Democratic leadership? No. We didn’t know what was going on,” she said.
She warned Catholic bishops who are “having some victory parties today,” saying they overreached. Anti-abortion groups ave “a long way to go” in the Senate, where pro-choice groups estimate there are only 39 votes on the issue, she said.
“I think the bishops are heading over to the Senate now to use the same intimidation tactics with the senators that they used in the House, but I think that we can overcome it,” she said.
The bishops who helped negotiate the vote say they are just as determined.
“The Conference will remain vigilant and involved throughout this entire process to assure that these essential provisions are maintained and included in the final legislation,” said Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
George said the group will “work to persuade the Senate to follow the example of the House and include these critical safeguards in their version of health care reform legislation.”
Rubiner said the groups may not have clergy to preach the message on Sundays, but they do have “millions of pro-choice voters” on their side.
They are mobilizing those supporters, many who were outraged to hear the amendment passed, and raising money for ad campaigns.
“As the country approaches a revolutionary step-forward for healthcare, we cannot let the anti-reproductive healthcare lobby force women to take a giant step backwards,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, wrote supporters in an email.
Northup told the group’s massive email list the vote was “a terrible blow for women’s health and rights, but the fight is not over yet.”
Other groups are in a tough spot since they support the overall bill. Several progressive groups are ignoring the abortion provision and instead running ads targeting Republicans and Democrats who opposed the overall measure, or thanking lawmakers who supported it.
“The House bill isn’t flawless. It includes a compromise version of the public option and an ugly anti-choice amendment,” MoveOn.org wrote to members yesterday, asking them to keep fighting as the debate shifts to the Senate.
Obama in an interview with ABC News last night insisted it’s “not an abortion bill” and signaled he doesn’t want to see that amendment in the final compromise that he signs.
