Pro-life Republicans in the House expressed dismay this evening over the abortion language signed by Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and the White House today in advance of tonight’s historic health care reform vote.
At a press conference that ended a few minutes ago, Republicans eviscerated the deal — and said that the Stupak, the man who signed it, had “broken our heart” with his decision to vote in favor of Democratic reforms.
The Republicans said that despite Democratic arguments to the contrary, the Senate-written reform bill before the House tonight will lead to publicly-funded abortion and an increase in the procedure after it is passed.
The group said that the executive order President Obama released today amounts to nothing more than an empty promise that the current ban on federal funding of abortion will be sustained after health care reform becomes law.
“We reject the political ploy that is this executive order,” Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) said.
“This piece of paper is merely an illusory promise,” Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) said. “It may not even stand for a week.”
“We were so proud of Bart Stupak,” Bachmann said, recalling the Stupak-Pitts amendment on abortion language in the House that many Republicans voted for when the House took up health care last November. (All but one Republican, including all the members at today’s press conference voted against the House bill, even with the Stupak-Pitts language attached.)
“We where heartbroken when we heard Stupak would vote for [the Senate reform bill tonight],” Bachmann said.
Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA), who coauthored the Stupak amendment (but also voted against the final reform bill that included it) also slammed the executive order compromise at the press conference.
“The executive order puts the fate of the unborn in the hands of the most pro-abortion president in history,” he said.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), the chair of the GOP pro-life caucus in the House, said that the bill Stupak and a number of other anti-choice Democrats now they they’ll support will lead to government funds being used for abortion, which is banned by the Hyde amendment, passed in 1976.
Nevertheless, Smith called the reform package up for a vote tonight “the largest expansion of public funding for abortion, ever.”
