Roman Around

Yes, Senator Ben Nelson, the “Pro-Life To A Point” Democrat, sold out.  Like the Joe Lieberman buy out, I suppose this one, too, should have been expected. If nothing else, Nelson has demonstrated for the American people – two-thirds of which do not support this bill – that there is a price tag on innocent human life. He has ripped a page from the Mary Landrieu Book of Ethics and Goodness in securing some Nebraska-bound goodies from the American taxpayer – with money we don’t have – by agreeing to ditch his principles (and I use that word lightly) in the name of political expediency.

Here’s an idea. Let’s go ahead and retire the phrase “pro-life Democrat.” Let’s throw it on the stinking trash heap of alluring words and sayings and set a match to it. Let’s toss it aside like so much salt on an ice-covered driveway. Let’s incinerate the notion that those who claim to be pro-life donkeys cannot be bought off – because they obviously can. Apparently, the life an unborn baby is precious and worth protecting only until enough sweetheart promises can be secured for one’s home state.

Most remarkable is the fact that both ends of political spectrum aren’t happy at all with Harry Reid’s “manager’s amendment.” Both sides are looking at the same language and walking away with completely different conclusions.

What’s consistent is that both sides are pissed off.

Terry O’Neill, President of the National Organization for Women issued a statement today:

The National Organization for Women is outraged that Senate leadership would cave in to Sen. Ben Nelson, offering a compromise that amounts to a Stupak-like ban on insurance coverage for abortion care. Right-wing ideologues like Nelson and the Catholic Bishops may not understand this, but abortion is health care. And health care reform is not true reform if it denies women coverage for the full range of reproductive health services.

We call on all senators who consider themselves friends of women’s rights to reject the Manager’s Amendment, and if it remains, to defeat this cruelly over-compromised legislation.

Meanwhile, the National Right to Life Committee isn’t pleased either:

The manager’s amendment is light years removed from the Stupak-Pitts Amendment that was approved by the House of Representatives on November 8 by a bipartisan vote of 240-194. The new abortion language solves none of the fundamental abortion-related problems with the Senate bill, and it actually creates some new abortion-related problems.

…

… if the final bill produced by a House-Senate conference committee does not contain the Stupak-Pitts Amendment, NRLC will score the House and Senate votes on the conference report as votes to allow federal mandates and subsidies for coverage of elective abortion. Unless the Stupak-Pitts Amendment is included in the final bill, and the new pro-abortion provisions dropped, a significant number of House members who voted for H.R. 3962 will not vote to pass the final legislation.

The bill stipulates that states will be able to opt out of having to cover abortions. 

And for those states that choose not to opt out, can you guess what happens next? (Roadmaps unnecessary). By golly, by gee, the federal government will pick up the tab. Thus, a pro-life taxpayer in Tyler, Texas, for example, will be able to fund the killing of an unborn child in Queens, New York.

Senator Mitch McConnell, earlier today, summed it up: “The bill includes permissive language on government-funded abortion.”

Period.

He also confirmed that Ben Nelson’s Nebraska is getting some “sweetheart deals” while the bill “imposes massive burdens on states that are already struggling under the weight of the cost of Medicaid.”

Senator Ben Nelson, I hope you remember how to type. You may very well need that skill once you’re thrown out on your ass come November.

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