House Healthcare Bill's Abortion Provisions Anger All Sides

By Dan Gilgoff
Posted November 09, 2009 03:25 PM ET

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

An abortion provision in the just-passed House healthcare bill that was designed to bring crucial antiabortion Democrats on board has not only outraged major abortion rights groups but has also incensed abortion foes. "This was a very cynical move on the part of the Democrats," says Marjorie Dannensfelser, president of the antiabortion Susan B. Anthony List, who doubts the House's strict restrictions on abortion coverage in government-subsidized health insurance will survive.

Many antiabortion groups expect the so-called Stupak-Pitts amendment, which prohibits a public health insurance option or private plans participating in a government-sponsored insurance exchange from offering abortion as part of basic coverage, to be stripped during negotiations between the House and the Senate, should the healthcare bill make it that far.

But abortion rights groups sound less confident of that outcome.

Democratic-allied faith groups, meanwhile, fear the House bill's sweeping abortion limits set up a showdown between abortion rights supporters and opponents that could torpedo healthcare reform.

Antiabortion groups winced as they released weekend statements applauding the inclusion of an amendment offered by Democratic Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak and Republican Pennsylvania Rep. Joe Pitts in the House bill. In addition to doubting the inclusion of Stupak-Pitts language in the final healthcare bill, most antiabortion groups oppose that bill on other grounds, like cost and concerns about end-of-life care.

"This has accomplished one goal," Dannensfelser said of the Stupak-Pitts amendment's inclusion in the House bill. "To worry the conservative base and to sort of confuse them."

Under the Stupak-Pitts provision, women would have to buy a separate insurance rider with their own money to cover abortions, a prospect that abortion rights groups call unlikely. Most women, they point out, don't count on unplanned pregnancies.

As abortion opponents voiced skepticism over the amendment's ultimate survival, abortion rights groups launched broadsides against its inclusion in the House bill. "It is extremely unfortunate that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and antichoice opponents were able to hijack the healthcare reform bill in their dedicated attempt to ban all legal abortion in the United States," Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement Saturday night. "We will work with [pro-abortion rights] members to rectify this travesty."

In a weekend Twitter post, Jehmu Greene, president of the Women's Media Center, wrote: "Hate that Dems are selling us out by basically banning access 2 abortions. They better wk this out in conference."

Left-leaning religious groups, for their part, are privately fuming at the Democratic House leadership for forgoing a compromise on abortion provisions that would have brought some antiabortion Democrats on board but would have been more palatable to abortion rights groups and Democrats.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment won support from 64 House Democrats, about a quarter of the party's caucus, and from most Republicans. The final healthcare bill, by contrast, had backing from a single GOP member.