At least one Republican, Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., says he’ll vote present on the amendment, and has four or five other members of the GOP who will join him. That may not be enough to scuttle the amendment, but it would make it close — Stupak has claimed between 220 and 225 votes in favor. If he was counting the whole GOP caucus, that would actually put him between 215 and 220 — and it takes 218 to pass.
Frankly, I don’t know why the GOP is going to vote for the amendment, at least if their goal is to stop health care reform; about their only chance of stopping the House from passing the bill is to get the Stupak amendment to fail. If it passes, the leadership has the votes to move it forward; if not, they probably still do, but it may peel off enough pro-life Democrats to make a difference.
Evidently, the GOP leadership has decided that reproductive rights is an issue that is important enough for principle to trump strategy. It would be nice if the Democratic leadership felt the same way.
The votes are in, the Stupak amendment has passed. It’s going to get stripped once the final bill gets put together, of course, but it just makes me sick that 40+ House Democrats had to make the point of voting for it before voting against it.
voting for it before voting against it.
Let’s hope so.
Strictly speaking, there won’t be another up and down for it; an appointed committee, hand picked by Pelosi and which will almost certainly snub Stupak or those of his ilk, will just excise it from the final bill. I meant that statement more as a turn of phrase: they know it won’t affect the final bill, but they still have to symbolically vote for it anyway.
Again, let’s hope that it really won’t be in the final bill. There’s only about a 1% chance that will happen, but still.
Would it? Really? If that meant hundreds/thousands of uninsured people DYING?
Would it really be nice?
I’m not sure that the Stupak amendment is going to get stripped. After all it only affects women and we’re not important. I think the only chance we have is to get “erectile dysfunction coverage” tied to contraceptives and abortion: if women can’t get abortions or birth control on the public option, men shouldn’t get their boner candy either.