Say Anything Blog

Pelosi cut a deal on abortion with Demcorats from red states to get them on board for her narrow victory in the House on Saturday.  And as soon as the bill is out of the House?  Well, everything changes of course.

President Obama said today that Congress needs to change abortion-related language in the health care bill passed by the House of Representatives this weekend.

“I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill,” Obama said. “And we’re not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.

Saying the bill cannot change the status quo regarding the ban on federally funding abortions, the President said “there are strong feelings on both sides” about an amendment passed on Saturday and added to the legislation, “and what that tells me is that there needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we’re not changing the status quo.”

And of course, by “work” he means the anti-abortion language needs to be stripped out.  Which is going to be difficult.  Not only is that going to create more hostility in the Senate where the chances of this bill seeing any progress before early next year are between slim and none, but should the Senate strip the abortion language out and pass its changes back to the House for approval Pelosi is going to have a tough time rallying the troops again with no deal-making possible on a straight up-or-down vote on the Senate’s changes.

What’s more, the timing is going to be bad.  Asking on-the-fence Democrats who just voiced tepid support for this bill to support an even worse bill at the beginning of next year’s pivotal elections?

I don’t ever want to be accused of underestimate Nancy Pelosi’s arm-twisting skills, but that’s going to be a tough row to hoe.