Stupak says some of his group are caving to pressure to vote for the bill without the Stupak language

Rep. Stupak in a telephone interview tells Robert Costa of NRO that the House leaders have given up on including the Stupak language in the bill (as we heard yesterday), but that they are now pressuring the Stupak Twelve to vote for the bill without the Stupak language:

According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats—the “Stupak dozen”—has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions….

” … At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve….

” … I’m telling the others to hold firm, and we’ll meet next week, but I’m disappointed in my colleagues who said they’d be with us and now they’re not. It’s almost like some right-to-life members don’t want to be bothered. They just want this over.”

There’s more than this. Stupak feels that pro-life Democrats are being forced out of the party. Where’s he been?

Posted by Lawrence Auster at March 12, 2010 07:27 PM | Send