On Hardball this evening, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) mostly held the line on his abortion amendment that he’d drawn earlier today on Fox and Friends.
“It was the pro-life Democrats who really put this bill over the top,” Stupak said of the House health care bill that included his amendment, which restricts federal subsidies for abortions.
When pressed by Chris Matthews, Stupak did not quantify how many votes would be lost were the Stupak Amendment to be stripped in conference, saying “I haven’t really gone and counted.”
Stupak took great pains to define his position as the mainstream stance, saying he agreed with the President’s position that any bill not use federal dollars to subsidize abortions and saying that “…we actually had an agreement the Friday night before the vote…unfortunately, extremists took over.”
Now he says he’s open to compromise. He mentioned that he was working with “one or two Senators” to find an acceptable compromise — but also said that “we had a fair-and-square vote” and “we won 55% of the House.”
“…[W]e beat ’em” he said, “so now they want a compromise?”
Noting the number of pro-choice legislators who refused to vote for a health care bill with the Stupak Amendment, Matthews asked, “Is this going to kill the health care bill?”
“I don’t think this is going to kill health care,” Stupak replied, “It was the pro-life Democrats who really put this bill over the top….Let’s not have an abortion debate…Let’s just have a health care debate.”
