You probably know by now that Senator Ben Nelson‘s charade has ended has publicly endorsed the phony compromise on abortion funding put forward by Senators Robert Casey Jr. and Harry Reid (Jill Stanek has a number of links and comments) and that Obamacare will probably now pass the Senate later this week. As I have written numerous times, this is just one more hurdle. As long as the pro-life House Democrats do not pull a Nelson once the Stupak amendment is eventually excised from the final bill that comes out of conference (see today’s Politico), it will be difficult to pass Obamacare because at least a dozen and perhaps as many as 20 pro-life House Democrats oppose expanding abortion through health care reform. Representatives, unlike most senators, are always just a year away from facing voters and can not as easily count on the short memories of disappointed constituents. That does not make Nelson’s double-cross of the babies any less disappointing, but there is still plenty of opportunity to get taxpayer funding of abortion out of Obamacare. But as I have also noted several times, it is more than just abortion subsidies that make this bill odious: expansion of assisted-suicide, death panels, bureaucratic decisions about quality of life, lack of conscience protection. There are manyreasons to oppose Obamacare and plenty of fight left in this battle.
Some pro-lifers will be dispirited. Not only will they erroneously consider this battle lost, they will be disappointed by Senator Nelson’s sell out. It is not the first time the pro-life movement will be let down by a politician and it will not be the last. These things happen in politics and we should not be surprised when one of the ‘good guys’ does it. It is time to move on, but never forget. Senator Nelson is up for re-election in 2012. That is tomorrow’s battle; today Obamacare.
Oswald Clark is the economics reporter of The Interim and an Ottawa and Boston based economist.
