Stupak and the fight against abortion funding
Bart Stupak says that leading the fight against including abortion funding in the HCR bill has been “a living hell” for him and his family. He’s gotten threatening phone calls in the office and at home, and its affected his family. But he’s hanging tough (so far at least; one never knows in the end with this crowd) and voting “no.”
I assume that the threats are coming from the supporters of HCR and federal abortion funding, although perhaps some are also from opponents who threaten him if he were to change his vote to “yes.” He doesn’t specify. But he does say one very curious thing:
The ideal outcome, Stupak said, might be for the House Democratic leadership to get the votes they need without him and for the bill to pass.
“You know, maybe for me that’s the best: I stay true to my principles and beliefs,” he said, and “vote no on this bill and then it passes anyways. Maybe for me is the best thing to do.”
How odd. So he stays true to his beliefs—and a bill that violates those deeply-held beliefs, as well as those of his supporters, passes and becomes the law of the land.
Stupak is a supporter of HCR in general, so he’s in conflict. But what sort of resolution would that be? Is his own conscience the paramount thing—as long as his hands are clean, he doesn’t care how dirty the bill passed by his fellow Democrats is? Is that what passes for principle these days?
If HCR passes, for the first time in history, we will have public financing of abortions. Tax payer funded abortion.
Abortion is needed or else there will be too many people for them to pay for… someone in the admin actually said something to that effect. so Sanger’s original reason is why we have it, not any of the other things that they say to sell it, normalize it and make it acceptable.
It sounds like despair…
JuliB: I agree, he is weary.
If he’s really so weary from the attacks, why go on Hardball on MSNBC tonight and draw more fire?
Neo, I think you touch on a very important cultural point. There is a growing willingness for people to allow terrible things to happen as long as they personally can display clean hands. It is much more common on the left, but I have read too many activists on the right trying that on as well. Think of the “not in our name” campaigns, and the willingness of the left to distance themselves from America when speaking to the world.
The health faddist’s obsession with toxins seems related, as does the green focus on purity.
It seems an odd twist on a concept of sin that is not-quite-Christian. Certainly we have used the image of a stain on one’s soul for many centuries, and many groups practice a general removal from the world to avoid its contamination, but we ultimately have the example of Pilate washing his hands to remind us that this is not the whole picture of morality. It seems rather pagan, actually.
People, this is how Congress has worked since the beginning of time. People want their party’s bill passed but cannot afford to vote for it, so deals are made. This is not a sign of the times. It is how our republic works.
Don: Ah, your soothing words of liberal troolish wisdom hath comforted me marvelous much!
These deals are different, and this bill is different, and this process is different, and what’s more you know it.
This slhoud put an end to the myth that some of us have known to be a lie for a long time…..the myth that there are pro-life Democrats.