The Washington Post reports that,
“House Democrats are working with the White House to craft an executive order that would clarify President Obama’s intention to maintain a long-standing ban on federal funding of abortion, congressional Democrats said.”
Stephen Dillard reports at First Things that Bart Stupak has agreed to vote “yes” on healthcare reform contingent upon adequate wording in an executive order. Kathryn Jean Lopez is also reporting that agreement has been reached on the executive order approach.
If this reporting bears out, then healthcare reform will indeed pass today.
How are pro-lifers evaluating this approach? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, and the Family Research Council all agree that “any executive order President Obama makes on abortion cannot override a law duly passed by Congress.” Read their statements here.
I share the concerns of these pro-life groups. Moreover, I don’t see how an executive order can be considered a permanent “fix” to this bill’s abortion problems. Executive orders can be undone as quickly as they are done, and another president (perhaps this President!) could revoke or modify the order. If that were to happen, healthcare reform would remain the law of the land, but the prohibition on tax-payer funded abortions would not.
We have to always have something to fear about don’t we? There’s always some evil agenda by those democrats.
Your rhetoric about this stuff never ceases to amaze me
Denny, just FYI, he said this morning that he’s leaning yes, but they haven’t reached a deal yet.
http://bit.ly/bnjxke
It’s still possible this deal could be stopped. And your readers might be interested in this letter that was sent to him, which clearly outlines why an EO is insufficient: http://bit.ly/akNm6E
Keep up the great work.
matt
RIP America, you were great once. Now evil men rule you.
Darius,
The history of the United States is replete with evil men, evil actions, and evil laws. By your use of the term “now,” are you honestly suggesting that this was never the case before, but all of the sudden is now because a healthcare reform bill got passed today? Are you seriously suggesting this?
Washington has been run by people with special interests since its inception. It was once run by tobacco companies, and thankfully that is no longer the case. It has been run by drug and insurance companies for years with their lobbying and billions of dollars. Hopefully with the passing of this bill, that influence won’t be as strong. Now they need to focus on the major food companies and regulating what we eat, because there are too many with special interests and being the recipients of “gifts” in that department too. Basically, whoever has the money runs Washington.
This bill, for everything that is wrong with it, I believe is a step in the right direction. In all honesty, it really is more pro-life than what healthcare has been in America for the last several decades. We can debate the semantics and abortion or whatever, but in the end I believe this will be for the good. We’ve just got a long, long, long way to go to get there. Healthcare was broken almost beyond repair. Anything would be better than what it currently is. I believe there is a good possibility that we will actually see abortions decrease as a result of it.