Heritage Foundation distorts Stupak's stance on abortion funding

by: Eric B.

Wed Oct 28, 2009 at 18:30:10 PM EDT

Someone videotaped Bart Stupak at a town hall meeting last weekend and the Heritage Foundation posted it to their blog, and based on what he said on C-SPAN the other day are claiming that Stupak wasn't truthful, that he is laying the groundwork to vote for taxpayer-funded abortions. They are distorting his very clear position on this.  Here is the video of Stupak at Saturday's town hall.

As you note, Stupak says he wants an opportunity to vote his conscience, saying,

"Let's say we have an amendment ... 3200's on the floor on November 6th. The amendment ... I offer an amendment that says "No public funding for abortion ... that's been the law of the land for many, many decades," and we lose that vote. Let's say we lose it. You need 218 to win. Let's say we get 217, and we lose. Would I vote against health care? If I had a chance to vote my conscience on it, I probably would not." 

The Heritage Foundation claims that this is Stupak creating wiggle room, especially given what he said on C-SPAN's Washington Journal the other day.  They even include a snippet of what he says, taking his articulated position out of context.  Here is what the Heritage Foundation says Stupak said on Washington Journal.

We believe, and the majority of the American people believe, that we should not be using public funds to pay for abortion coverage in health care.

Here is something else he said in that video:

We want a right to bring this issue forth on the floor and decide as a nation "is this going to be a paid-for benefit by taxpayer dollars?" We don't believe that's where a majority of American voters are. We believe that if we got a vote on the floor, we'd be able to knock that part out, paid-for abortion.

The Heritage Foundation posted about Stupak earlier, saying this:

Stupak has pulled together 40 like-minded Democrats who plan to block healthcare reform legislation from coming to a vote on the House floor if the bill includes federal subsidies for abortions. As The Hill reports, “Stupak wants a vote on the House floor to strike the language, and predicts he would have the votes to pass such an amendment.”

You can probably see where the Heritage Foundation has gone off the rails here.  Stupak is saying he wants an opportunity to vote on an amendment stripping abortion from health care reform, and that if he doesn't get it, he'll attempt to make sure the entire bill is torpedoed.  If he does get it, and he loses, he'll consider voting for the entire bill.  However, because he says that the majority of Americans agre with him and because he says it's been the law of the land for "many, many decades," he would expect to win such a vote. Stupak's position is canny politics -- he clearly doesn't want publicly-funded abortions, and wants an opportunity to vote on publicly-funded abortions. He appears confident that his position would win, but that if he lost he says he wouldn't necessarily pick up his toys and go home. The Heritage Foundation looks at this move -- one made from the perceived position of power -- as a sign of personal weakness.