Senate Panel Rejects Anti-Abortion Measure

(AP)  Senators writing a health care overhaul bill on Wednesday rejected a bid to strengthen anti-abortion provisions already in the legislation, in a vote that could have far-reaching repercussions.

The 13-10 vote by the Senate Finance Committee could threaten support for health care overhaul from some Catholics who back its broad goal of expanding coverage.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, argued that provisions already in the bill to restrict federal funding for abortions needed to be tightened to guarantee they would be ironclad.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Health Care

But his argument failed to carry the day. One Republican, Olympia Snowe of Maine, voted with the majority. One Democrat, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, supported Hatch.

Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., argued that his bill already incorporates federal law that bars abortion funding, except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. It would require health plans to keep federal subsidies separate from any funds used to pay for abortions in all other cases.

The concern from abortion opponents, including Catholic bishops

is that those underlying restrictions have to be renewed every year. If Congress fails to renew the ban one year, plans funded through the health care overhaul would be allowed to cover the procedure, abortion opponents contend.

Abortion rights supporters respond that adding a permanent restriction on abortion funding to the health bill would actually go beyond current federal law, which has to be renewed every year.

"This is a health care bill," said Baucus. "This is not an abortion bill. And we are not changing current law."

Hatch said his language, "would codify it, so we don't have to go through it every year."

Abortion rights supporters said the Hatch language could deny coverage for abortion to working women signing up for coverage through private plans.

Its approval would be a "poison pill ... if it is hung on this legislation," said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

The committee also rejected, 13-10, a Hatch conscience amendment that would have strengthened provisions to protect health care workers who refuse to perform abortions and other procedures because of religious or moral objections.

Is the Public Option Dead?

On Tuesday, liberal Democrats failed in two efforts to include a government-run insurance option in the legislation before the Senate Finance Committee. Finance is the last of five congressional panels completing work on President Barack Obama's No. 1 domestic priority, a top-to-bottom reshaping of the U.S. health care system to hold down costs and extend coverage to the uninsured.

The outcome was expected in the moderate committee, which is the only of the five not to have embraced a new federally run insurance plan that would compete with private insurers. Advocates say the competition would help consumers while opponents say it would destroy private companies and result in a government takeover of health care.

Baucus said he saw features to like in the so-called public plan but that it wouldn't get the 60 votes necessary to advance in the Senate. "My first job is to get this bill across the finish line," said Baucus, who'd proposed nonprofit, member-owned cooperatives instead.

Public plan supporters vowed to keep up their fight as the bill moves toward the Senate floor, and then to negotiations with the House. Democratic leaders in both chambers are pushing for floor votes in the fall.

"We are going to keep at this and at this and at this until we succeed because we believe in it so strongly," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

But first the bill has to get out of the Finance Committee, where senators also faced amendments expected to be offered by minority Republicans to strengthen prohibitions against illegal immigrants getting federal funding to buy insurance.

Those issues are also still pending in the House, where Democratic leaders hope to finalize legislation this week that would merge the work of three separate committees into one. Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., was to meet with the full Democratic caucus Wednesday morning to discuss issues including the final shape of a public plan she intends to include in the House bill, and how to pare the bill down to $900 billion over 10 years. Obama's preferred price tag and about how much the Senate Finance version costs.

[alanrobisch]

Life ends when the brain dies. Life begins when conceptions occurs.

[alanrobisch]

Slow your complaint about my self rigteousness is about where you are. YOu are dismissing Mortarman because you difer with him and because I have the gall to work for social security yet oppose socialized medicine makes me a hypocrite. Give me a break.

I don't expect people to either agree with me or even necessarily respect me but I believe your argument about abortion are not based in science. You stated that the baby gets a soul when its born yet you say you don't believe in the bible. What is a soul then?

[slownewsday_5]

Al - your hypocrisy is just ridiculous.

And I dismiss Mortar because he's proven himself an idiot on these boards consistently.

Are you arguments based in science? Then tell me how the earth will support more on this growth curve when the world population has risen from 1.1 billion in 1850 to almost 7 billion in 2009... You aren't interested in the science at all, really... You are interested in your beliefs.

Well, I have my own, and they aren't compatible with yours - you'll just have to live with that. And please tell me you realize that the Bible isn't the only place the "soul" has ever been discussed... Sheesh!

Regardless, I'll bid you a good day. I still am reeling from your idiocy on the health-insurance page.

[slownewsday_5]

OK - Mort's gone, and only Al's here.

Al, you lost all credibility the other day with your health-care rant. No interest in you.

[alanrobisch]

C'est la vie. I guess I didn't lose much. I am told by others that you can be known by your enemies, Maybe in this case I can be proud that people like you who do not respect the life of the unborn and come up with silly rationalizations to justify their willingness to condone the destruction of innocent human life

[alanrobisch]

Note I meant soul in my last post not slow.

[alanrobisch]

Its a human being and slow might look at sonograms of a child and then come back and claim what he is claiming. Most pro abortion people see it as a form of birth control but can't admit it so they go through this long rationalization to justify it. Claiming its not a baby. I guess they must believe in miracles. While the child is in utero its not a child and then voila its a baby.

When my sister lost two children by spontaneous abortion no one said sorry you lost your fetus. Its not a child so there is no reason to grieve.

[slownewsday_5]

I'm not pro-abortion, Al, I'm just not anti-choice. Big difference.

Hey - how's your hypocrisy feeling today? Enjoying your cushy gov't subsidized health insurance while saying others shouldn't have it?

[slownewsday_5]

Awww, what, Mortie - did you have to get back to work?

Boss caught you stealing his time? LOL!

[prometheus21]

The 13-10 vote by the Senate Finance Committee could threaten support for health care overhaul from some Catholics who back its broad goal of expanding coverage.

WHO GIVES A $HIT? Why does the U.S. population care what SOME Catholics think who back it's "broad" goal of expanding coverage.

Is that like some kind of ridiculous compromise that's suppose to be made for some ubiquitous leverage we MIGHT be able to get from some minority of people threatening to hold hostage the entire "broad" goal of expanding coverage if they don't get what they want?

The main-stream "free press" serving as the ultimate tool of propaganda for the SAME minority interests, over and over. This must have been what our founding father's were making reference to with regard to protecting that in the first amendment. Clearly, the government has no role in recognizing or acknowleging propaganda in our society as a infringement on free press.

[abbe91]

"Hmmm, what is wrong with people who like little children to live. It's just so vile and evil, isn't it? Party of death, that is the best name for the Democrat party."

And who don't have a problem with the infant mortality rate of our country being worse than the Cuban one, the double than many European countries.

[Mortarman29]

Abbe, you need to read my post above. Our infant mortality rate is NOT higher than other industialized nations. Not when comparing apples to apples. Take a look at my post above about an hour ago...you'll see the truth.

[slownewsday_5]

No one should look to you for the "truth", Mort - quit leading her on.

[prometheus21]

What I would like to know, is how some small group of people in our most unrepresentative branch of Congress, the Senate (which mostly represents States not individual U.S. citizens) managed to form a coalition to yank majority rule away from the legislature and communicate THEIR "decisions" through the press, as if they have any legitimacy?

How much of this tooling of our democracy are we supposed to put up with?

Can we have something like 95% majority rule of one party in both the House and the Senate, but because of parliamentary rules within each of these legislative branches, a non-pluralistic representation of political parties can be represented in some commitees, and in turn this give a 5% minority equal representation in our legislation, through "free press" initiatives giving them a loud propagandist voice?

How much does it take before this corruption of our democracy forces a rebellion -- or the much more likely case, a slow and silent exodus of the unreprented and unborn majority expected to pay most of the bills over the next thirty years?

If you love America, you really need to consider leaving it, at least until the cancer that's consuming runs it course. Don't be a victim of the cancer, America can be rebuilt on their rotting fetid corpses.

[Mortarman29]

One problem is that we dont have a democracy. Actually, that isnt a problem...it is a good thing! We dont want a democracy...the Founders even warned us against having one. it is the WORST form of government and ALWAYS leads to tyranny.

[slownewsday_5]

Congress operates as a democracy.

You just don't understand which form of democracy we have.

[Mortarman29]

Part II



As Nicholas Eberstadt demonstrates in his book "The Tyranny of Numbers: Mismeasurement and Misrule," American hospitals do so well with low birth-weight babies that if Japan had our medical care with their low birth-weight babies, another third of their babies would survive, making it even harder for an American kid to get into MIT.

But I think it's terrific that liberals are finally willing to start looking at outcomes to judge a system. I say we start right away with the public schools!

In international comparisons, American 12th-graders rank in the 14th percentile in math and the 29th percentile in science. The U.S. outperformed only Cyprus and South Africa in general math and science knowledge. Worse, Asian countries didn't participate in the last 12th-grade assessment tests.

Imagine how much worse our public schools would look -- assuming that were possible -- if we allowed other countries to exclude one-half of their worst performers!

That's exactly what liberals are doing when they tout America's rotten infant mortality rate compared to other countries. They look for any category that makes our medical care look worse than the rest of the world -- and then neglect to tell us that the rest of the world counts our premature and low birth-weight babies as "miscarriages."

As long as American liberals are going to keep announcing that they're embarrassed for their country, how about being embarrassed by our public schools or by our ridiculous trial lawyer culture that other countries find laughable?

Don't be discouraged, liberals -- when it comes to utterly frivolous lawsuits against obstetricians presented to illiterate jurors so that John and Elizabeth Edwards can live in an 80-room house, we're still No. 1!