Tuesday, 10 November 2009
We had a great victory on Saturday night. The House passed the Stupak-Pitts amendment to prohibit the use of federal dollars for abortion 240 to 194. They then passed the entire health
care bill 220 to 215. Now it goes to the Senate. We will have to be attentive to it there. Finally, health care reform and access by 45 million Americans who have none is a real possibility. Cardinal George, president of the USCCB, stated that our attention must also be focussed on the very poor and the elderly and how they might fare in the Senate version. You can read his statement here:
http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2009/09-232.shtml
What is amazing to me about this turn of events is the majority of members of the House who voted for a pro-life amendment! 240 is a substantial group. What is more amazing to me is that 64 Democrats voted for this amendment. That is about one third of the Democrats in the House! It is clearly too optimistic to say that there has been a sea change on pro-life issues, but something has happened to change the power dynamics. Reports are that the pro-abortion Democrats were stunned that this happened late saturday night. They were unprepared to mount an assault on the amendment because they felt it was so unlikely to even reach the floor. But Ms. Pelosi calculated that having a bill pass was more important than pleasing her pro-abortion wing. Somehow it was the right time, the right words were spoken, the alliance between the pro-life Democrats and the USCCB held, and there was some luck in the frantic hours before the vote Saturday night. I attribute this to the Spirit working and to the multitude of prayers that stormed capital Hill.
I am very impressed by the pro-life Democratic leadership, Bark Stupak (D MI) who stared the powerful Speaker down....and didn't blink.
