...a Democratic U.S. House leader says party shouldn't shun abortion opponents

[BumRushDaShow]

27. "There's not enough anti-abortion Democrats on Capitol Hill to fill a phone booth"

I remember back in 2010, there were at least 12 of them who along with Bart Stupak (remember him?) refused to vote for the ACA unless abortion access had some kind of restriction, which initially meant that the "Hyde Amendment" wasn't enough. There were actually 64 Democrats who voted for Stupak's "Amendment".

Could Issue of Abortion Derail Health Care Bill?

Rep. Stupak says he won't vote for bill if it contains Senate abortion language.

By HUMA KHAN
March 4, 2010, 6:40 AM


WASHINGTON, March 4, 2010— -- Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., today said he and 11 other House members will not vote for the health care bill unless it includes more stringent language to prevent federal funding from going toward abortion services. "We're not going to vote for this bill with that kind of language," Stupak told "Good Morning America's" George Stephanopoulos today, referring to the Senate health care bill, which includes less restrictive language than what the Democratic lawmaker proposed in the House.

Stupak said he is willing to take the criticism that will be hurled at him if he blocks the bill because of the abortion language, but that he won't back down on his principles. "I want to see health care pass. I agree... people are being priced out of the market. We must have health care but, boy, there are some principles and beliefs that some of us are not going to pass," he said. "We're prepared to take the responsibility. I mean, I've been catching it ever since last fall. Let's face it, I want to see health care. But we're not going to bypass some principles and beliefs that we feel strongly about."

The ongoing abortion debate threatens to stall the health care bill and reflects the deep divide among Democrats. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs today said the president would like to see the House pass the health care bill before he departs for his international trip on March 18, but that does include passing the "fixes" that the White House has proposed.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., today said that the bill makes no changes to the existing law on abortion.

"There is no change in the access to abortion, no more no less. It is abortion neutral," Pelosi told reporters. "If you believe that there should be no federal funding for abortion, and if you believe that there should be no change in policy... we will pass the bill." Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told Stephanopoulos on "GMA" that the bill is not about abortion, but about changing the health care system to ease the burden on families and small businesses facing skyrocketing insurance premiums.

https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/HealthCare/abortion-issue-derail-obama-democrats-health-care-efforts/story?id=10006591

Bart Stupak, A Year After Health Care: Getting 'Bitched Out' in Airports, How the Deal Went Down, and More

By Chris Good
March 23, 2011

Former congressman Bart Stupak was the lynchpin of health reform's passage, and he paid a price for it in the end.
The pro-life, Michigan Democrat led a small but powerful bloc of Democratic lawmakers to oppose the bill because of its language on federal funding of abortions. Seemingly at the last minute, Stupak and the White House hammered out a compromise, his pro-life allies supported the bill, and it passed by a thin margin.

After that, Stupak received a death threat. Facing outside spending in his district and a vitriolic political climate, he decided not to run for reelection. Now, he's a visiting fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics.

On health care reform's first birthday, Stupak told The Atlantic about getting "bitch[ed] out" by angry citizens in airports, how he and President Obama reached the deal that secured the bill's passage, and that Rahm Emanuel knows better than to get in his face.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/03/bart-stupak-a-year-after-health-care-getting-bitched-out-in-airports-how-the-deal-went-down-and-more/72938/

Per this, there were 6 others with him at the time of his announcement of finally agreeing to it (of that group, there is still one still in Congress - Marcy Kaptur) - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stupak-to-vote-yes-on-health-care-bill/

Stupak was joined at the press conference by six other lawmakers, including Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH), who had said previously she would vote yes, and Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), Nick Rahall (D-WV), Alan Mollohan (D-WV), Steve Driehaus (D-OH), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), who all said they would now be yes votes.

After he left congress, he was a huge supporter of Hobby Lobby (and their case).

There are still some in there and I hate to say. Below were some remaining post-ACA after trying to torpedo the ACA to forbid abortion services (bolded are still sitting members of Congress) -

Colin Peterson MN-07
Jim Cooper TN-05
Dan Lipinski IL-03
Stephen Lynch MA-08
Sanford Bishop GA-02
Jim Costa CA-16
Henry Cuellar TX-28
Jim Langevin RI-02
Tim Ryan OH-13
Richard Neal MA-01
Marcy Kaptur OH-09
Mike Doyle PA-14

(we know Tim Ryan just won the primary to run for Senate in OH)

And the one about to get a laser focus includes my own Senator, whose father was the defendant (as Governor) in Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Granted, Bob Casey, Jr. is definitely NOT his father and has been much more moderate on the issue. But I know some of the local (and probably national) media have started to bubble about it...

If Roe v. Wade falls, Pennsylvania’s pro-life Sen. Bob Casey becomes a linchpin for abortion rights

He was one of two Dems who didn’t join 48 other senators in co-sponsoring the Women’s Health Protection Act.


Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in December 2021 Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo

Lizzy McLellan Ravitch
May. 03, 2022, 1:15 p.m.


Bob Casey is an outlier among his Democratic colleagues in the U.S. Senate. As a pro-life Democrat, he wants to limit the number of abortions that take place in the U.S. — but he also doesn’t approve of Republicans’ recent attempts to weaponize the issue. A draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision leaked Monday night, indicating a likelihood that the justices will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Casey responded to the leaked opinion in a statement Tuesday afternoon.

“If this draft opinion becomes the final opinion of the Court, I have serious concerns about what overturning almost 50 years of legal precedent will mean for women in states passing near or total bans on abortion,” Casey said. “Congress should be working to reduce the number of abortions and unintended pregnancies and doing much more to support women and families.”

After the SCOTUS draft leaked, pro-choice advocates renewed calls for federal lawmakers to pass a law that would preserve abortion rights. The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act last fall. The Senate then voted in late February, but the act failed to get majority support.

Just two of the 50 sitting Democratic senators held back from co-sponsoring the bill. One was West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who ultimately joined Republicans (as he has on other issues) and voted against moving the act forward. The other holdout who declined to sponsor the bill was Casey, who has throughout his political career described himself as a pro-life Democrat. His father, former Pa. Gov. Bob Casey Sr., was famously pro-life.

https://billypenn.com/2022/05/03/bob-casey-abortion-senate-pro-life-democrat-scotus/

The entire thing above is just to make people aware because some of these people ARE getting pounded by some of their constituents now.