Career battle

Healthcare: House healthcare passage could hinge on pro-life Democrats | Edward Lee Pitts

Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom

On a rainy Saturday, pro-life activists lay down on the street outside the White House to form the number 71. That's the percentage of Americans, according to a recent poll, who oppose taxpayer-funded abortions. But in the long healthcare debate, lawmakers have largely ignored that number.

There have been more than a dozen failed efforts to exclude abortion services in any overhaul. Current law prohibits federal funding for abortion procedures through Medicaid, the federal employee health plan, and military plans. But the new health bill creates new federal funding avenues that are not covered under current law. Soon after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi unveiled her supersized $894 billion, 1,990-page healthcare proposal, one of the authors of the failed amendments, Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., complained that the language in the bill "does not do enough" to prevent federally-funded abortion services. Stupak said as many as 39 other Democrats shared his concerns—and that got the attention of the House leadership: With Republicans in uniform opposition, 40 Democratic defectors could derail the bill.