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Democrat Herb Kohl To Oppose Abortion Coverage in Health Care Bill

By: James Richardson (Diary)  |  December 8th, 2009 at 11:52 AM  | 

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Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI) “categorically” pledged in September to oppose abortion coverage mandates in the health care legislation presently before Congress, but with the Hatch-Nelson amendment on the immediate horizon some now fear the Wisconsin Democrat may hedge on his promise.

“We should not be using health care reform to provide government access to abortion,” said Kohl–who NARAL awarded a 100% pro-choice rating–at a health care forum sponsored by Marquette University Law School.

But of particular consequence for the prescient senior senator from Wisconsin was the concern that Senate leadership would broker a late-night, controversial agreement on federally-subsidized abortion.

Decidedly off-message, Kohl continued, “And I would hope that people from whatever party won’t try and go down that road and put it into a bill in the dead of night and then, lo and behold, wake up the next morning and something that shouldn’t have happened did happen.”

Marquette graduate Dan Zeidler, whose line of questioning on abortion promise to land Kohl in uncertain waters with progressive Democrats, was assured by the Senator the two could work “directly” on a solution to prevent controversial abortion coverage mandates.

After weeks of unresponsiveness, Zeidler penned an open letter to Kohl, copying local Catholic Bishops. The letter (PDF) asks Kohl to reconfirm his commitment to “work directly” with concerned constituents to ensure passage of a similarly-worded House-passed provisions that denies federal coverage for abortion “and the other related life-protective matters, including the rights of conscious.”

An audio recording of the forum confirms Kohl’s account of the event, which was previously unreported.

Cross-posted to Skepticians.com.

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COMMENTS

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  • crosley

    Even safe Democrats from blue states that are adamantly pro-abortion like Kohl are willing to throw the abortion coverage overboard if it means passing universal health care.

    Abortion coverage is not going to derail this bill, conservatives keep thinking it’s a silver bullet, but its not. If we make abortion THE issue, and that issue is tossed aside, the entire foundation for opposition has been washed away.

    Do you really think liberals are going to gamble away this once in a generation opportunity for such a minor issue in the overall scheme? Access to abortion has almost nothing to do with the financial costs. I doubt very many women (if any) decide not to get an abortion because of the out of pocket cost, especially since actually delivering and raising a child is far more expensive.

    • Kyle-MI

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorpion_and_the_frog

      The smart move by pro-abortion Democrats would be to support a pro-life amendment. However, pro-abortion Democrats are like the scorpion; they won’t be able to help themselves. There is no way they will be able to force themselves to vote pro-life on this. And there are not 60 pro-life votes to pass it, even ignoring Snowe and Collins.

      While Casey (D-PA) and some other Dems claim to be pro-life, they are sheep who will vote for whatever the Democratic leaders tell them to. Nelson (D-NE), on the other hand, is principled (and represents a solid red state to boot).

      • texas214

        My take-away is that maybe Dems from Red or modestly conservative states are going to use the abortion angle to vote against the bill. This way they have an excuse to vote against the far Left’s desire for government run health care without having to technically vote against government run health care. The straw man, if you will.

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    That should seem obvious, of course, and there is ZERO REASON, likewise, that people who seek to “correct” (which is all the flippant way the Left sees) it shouldn’t be REQUIRED to Pay for it themselves. That is NOT what the discussion is about – it is all about, as pointed out by many, just a question of what is going to be the deal making required to pass this garbage in the usual name of Liberal Incremental-ism — how anyone in America, especially our elected GOP members don’t grasp this and fully oppose this just on this basis alone is beyond me!!! Anything they can toss out now, in order to do whatever it takes to get the votes to pass it, will be “FIXED” (in their minds) later. ALL the Democrats know that and is why they will ultimately come around — unless some Republican is DUMB enough (cough… Snowe) to provide a Democrat cover to vote No by giving them that BS “BiPartisan” cover vote they want so the MSM can play it up. This is the ultimate in LUMP SUM Incremental-ism they’ve ever been able to push forth in one chunk because of their numbers and knowing the McLame … er… lame… opposition they have that will do as little as possible (just for show) to oppose it. We must keep the pressure on all GOP Senators that the only acceptable position is KILL THE BILL and start over with real solutions….

    Cross-State line portability (which States will resist giving up Mandates/Controls), Tort reform min. 50Billion, PreExisting condition exclusion (guaranteed issue) elimination (not allowed in MI, enact that Nationally), post/transitional employment coverage (modifying COBRA and HSA/MSA accounts to NOT ZERO OUT each year so multi-year savings can/will PAY FOR OWN COVERAGE while between jobs), (avoiding the HR3200/HR3926/HR3590 consequences/fact) More Govt. regulations and paperwork will DRIVE UP not reduce costs and bring us more Lawyers and Office Administrators to deal with it NOT Doctors, etc….

    anything less is unacceptable and we as Conservatives will come together to oppose them in their Primaries if they don’t get it.

    Abortion will NOT be left out of/for funding, by any of the hook/crook methods Liberals can/will use post-Law passage anyway…. again, they (and most of their supporters know it) because. Even IF Abortion were to be OUTLAWED COMPLETELY by this Bill it would NOT be worthy of passage/support….

    Mooncalves led to the Slaughter…. The STUPID (er… Stupak) House — and now this one in the Senate — Amendment is just a strategy boondoggle Republicans stepped in out of LAZINESS and unwillingness to VOTE NO and have to go back and actually engage, explain, educate, constituents as to WHY it was all a SHAME/SHELL-GAME Vote and a NO vote the Right vote (and NOT, by any means would it have been a Pro-Abortion vote). LAZINESS. A NV (Not-Voting) would have been the appropriate stance (no-one could claim they were Pro-Abortion funding that a NO vote would have allowed).

    Further…. just proves, IMO, my whole CINOs/PLINOs, and Pavlovian-Blue-Dogs contention. The Stupak Amendment just provided cover for them to vote for the POS which should never have happened, because…
    1- (supposedly) Removing Abortion funding from it does NOT make the rest of the Bill ?GOOD? – as if the Abortion funding was/is the only ‘BAD? thing in it!
    2- Duplicity Votes – Setting up Duplicity Votes – the have it both way Game Politicians play to be able to say anything during Campaigns
    3- Abortion funding WILL STILL OCCUR – Liberals/Democrats ALWAYS consider themselves ABOVE THE LAW and ignore them when convenient to their causes…
    3A- The ‘Abortion funding exclusion’ will NOT survive the Conference/Consolidation ?compromise? process when it comes time to join in Conference/Committee the House and Senate Bills
    3B- Liberal bureaucrats will still pay for ABORTIONS paying for them billed as something like a generic ‘Pregnancy Services’ term – or the like BS (as discussed in one of the Townhalls primers: here, here, here, here, here, and HC issues summary here, don?t recall off-hand which one)
    3C- If they ALLOW it to survive into the Final Bill, to again provide cover for CINOs/PLINOs, and Pavlovian-Blue-Dogs Democrats (and maybe a few Republicans) to vote for it under Pro-Life grounds (and again, see #1), it will be stripped on a Saturday Late night, or reversed by language stuffed into the middle of some other Bill, otherwise removed undercover of the night, at a later date. Haven?t people learned anything?!?!? LIBERAL INCREMENTAL-ISM at its most obvious yet again!!!!
    4- HHS Sect. under these Bills has SOLE DISCRETION and job of putting forth the “minimal standards” qualification and can/will put Abortion funding back in by fiat. — I hear some say that would provide a conflict! Democrats DO NOT CARE and will invoke only those portions of Law that suits their moving their agenda forward and ignoring all else!
    5- Liberal Judge Activists — no more needs saying on that one!

  • anotherindyfilmguy

    about how “proud they were to be working to fix the health care bill etc”…

    My response:
    Trying to make this monstrocity “nicer” is only working with the enemy! Making it “socialist lite” or otehrwise “fixing” the current bill only allows the foot in the door for the takeover of the healthcare industry later if not directly through this bill. Kill this socialist driven economy killing, essentially treasonous peice of legislation. If you want real “reform” for the medical industry shove some tort reform through. Quit trying to help the Democratics destroy this Country!

    (Geez I need to spellcheck sometime…)

  • bk
    • http://www.theamericanmind.com Sean Hackbarth

      Here’s the roll call. Someone should ask Sen. Kohl for an explanation.

      • bk

        ReidCare has a “firewall” that prevents such public spending.

        • Richard Mullins

          Really, how could he go against his nature of supporting abortion?

  • danielbdp

    Agree 100% with your assessment, posted to my diary so others can find and comment on it.