“Déjà vu all over again” is the funny phrase that comes to mind about a not-at-all-funny issue. During the Clinton years I stood with other pro-life lobbyists outside the Capitol on behalf of Concerned Women for America (CWA), sometimes until very late at night (in high heels by the way), helping to circulate a letter from pro-life Dems to the President regarding abortion in health care. This letter was one of the final nails in the coffin to Clinton Care because it was proof that they could not pass the bill if it included funding for abortion. The Obama administration’s unchecked arrogance on the issue flies in the face of the fact that the public is more — not less — pro-life now than in the Clinton years. Gallup reports that more Americans, 51 percent of them, consider themselves pro-life now than at any time since Gallup began asking the question in 1995, http://www.gallup.com/poll/118399/more-americans-pro-life-than-pro-choice-first-time.aspx.
Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to the push-back from members of her party (64 of whom voted in favor of the pro-life Stupak Amendment) verges on delusional. I have had calls and emails from CWA members around the country asking “what is she talking about?” My answer is that she has been doing mental gymnastics that should earn her a gold medal. Speaker Pelosi knows that the current bill has an abortion “problem” but she chooses tacit denial to the simple fact that if she passes a health care bill without abortion coverage it will alienate her base. If she doesn’t allow the pro-life Blue Dogs to pass another amendment then she looses their support.
The Clintons couldn’t pass a bill containing abortion funding and neither can President Obama, no matter how well he explains it. I shouldn’t be explaining this to Pelosi because the abortion funding is just one bad idea in the very bad bill. But then again, she’ll just deny it.
For more on this issue, see my piece today on FoxNews.com, http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/03/08/penny-young-nance-obama-health-care-plan-abortion-democrats/, and CWA President Wendy Wright’s article today at Human Events, http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=35936/.