The House of Representatives passed the Stupak-Pitts amendment which bans abortion coverage under a government health plan. The vote was a healthy 240 to 194 margin. The vote on H.R. 3962, the government takeover of health care in the United States, was 220-215 (Democrats 219 in favour, 39 against; Republicans 176 against, one for).
House Republican Leader John Boehner notes that three committee chairman will not guarantee that the Stupak-Pitts amendment will be in the final bill to come out of the House-Senate conference meeting after the Senate passes some form of health care reform — if the Senate passes a reform bill. Funny thing, as Kathryn Jean Lopez notes in The Corner, is that Planned Parenthood is promising to “get the abortion that was never there back.”
This is far from over. Obamacare might not pass both houses of Congress because 1) the two different Senate bills might not be reconciled in that institution, 2) the Senate could defeat both those bills or 3) the House and Senate bills might not be reconciled. And the battle to ensure that if it does pass, anti-life measures are not part of it, must continue.
