Notepad

The pro-abortion battle plan for this year is to win enactment of health care legislation that, through powerful although veiled provisions, will result private health plans being required to cover elective abortion, and big new subsidies for this coverage. The new subsidies are self-appropriated and therefore will never be subject to the Hyde Amendment. If they are successful in this endeavor, they plan to come back next year and dismantle the remaining barriers to government promotion of abortion, such as the Hyde Amendment, which applies only to funds that flow through the HHS appropriations bill such as Medicaid.

As in a war, however, sometimes individual units get carried away and get out in front of the general's line of battle, and that is happening in Congress right now. Some pro-abortion lawmakers just can't restrain their urge to attack pro-life policies. The two most recent examples: First, on July 7, the House Appropriations Committee voted to repeal the longstanding ban on public funding of abortion in the District of Columbia -- and Congressman Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who poses as a pro-life lawmaker for purposes of undercutting genuine pro-life efforts, was among those voting for government funding of elective abortion, with funds appropriated by Congress."

Here's the vote breakdown on that one from CQ's coverage:

HR 3170 Fiscal 2010 Financial Services Appropriations/D.C. Funding of Abortions Amendment text

Tiahrt, R-Kan. - Amendment that would prohibit any District of Columbia funds, including locally raised funds, from being used for abortions.

Rejected 26-33: R 21-1; D 5-32; I 0-0; July 7, 2009.

YEAS (26)

Republicans (21)

Aderholt (Ala.) Alexander, R. (La.) Bonner (Ala.) Calvert (Calif.) Carter (Texas) Cole (Okla.) Crenshaw (Fla.) Culberson (Texas) Emerson (Mo.) Granger (Texas) Kingston (Ga.) Kirk (Ill.) Latham (Iowa) LaTourette (Ohio) Lewis, Jerry (Calif.) Rehberg (Mont.) Simpson (Idaho) Tiahrt (Kan.) Wamp (Tenn.) Wolf (Va.) Young, C.W. (Fla.)

Democrats (5) Berry (Ark.) Davis, L. (Tenn.) Kaptur (Ohio) Mollohan (W.Va.) Murtha (Pa.)

NAYS (33)

Republicans (1) Frelinghuysen (N.J.)

Democrats (32) Bishop, S. (Ga.) Boyd, A. (Fla.) Chandler (Ky.) DeLauro (Conn.) Dicks (Wash.) Edwards, C. (Texas) Farr (Calif.) Fattah (Pa.) Hinchey (N.Y.) Honda (Calif.) Israel (N.Y.) Jackson, J. (Ill.) Kennedy, P. (R.I.) Kilpatrick (Mich.) Lee (Calif.) Lowey (N.Y.) McCollum (Minn.) Moran, James (Va.) Obey (Wis.) Olver (Mass.) Pastor (Ariz.) Price, D. (N.C.) Rodriguez (Texas) Rothman (N.J.) Roybal-Allard (Calif.) Ruppersberger (Md.) Ryan, T. (Ohio) Salazar, J. (Colo.) Schiff (Calif.) Serrano (N.Y.) Visclosky (Ind.) Wasserman Schultz (Fla.)

NOT VOTING (1)

Republicans (1) Rogers, H. (Ky.) ?

And back to Johnson's e-mail:

"Second, at the same time that Sen. Richard J. Durbin, D-Ill., has been on TV assuring the public that the Hyde Amendment will prevent the Obama-backed health care bills from funding abortions -- which is untrue -- he also, in his capacity as chairman of the Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee, reported a bill that deleted both the D.C. abortion funding ban and the longstanding ban on funding of elective abortions for federal employees. These actions are certainly demonstrative of the true policy preferences of these two lawmakers (and of the President), and it is appropriate for Jill Stanek or others to point this out."

Quick break-in from Notepad: In his July 13 interview on Hardball with Chris Matthews, Durbin actually says insurance plans should offer abortion services under the new government health plan so long as there is a "conscience clause" that allows providers (doctors, nurses, hospitals, etc.) to opt out of performing them.

Here's the key exchange from the Hardball transcript that day.

MATTHEWS: So you don't believe--just to finish the point, you don't think the national health program we're going to get in October of this year--many of us hope we're going to get--should include federal funding for abortion. You think it should not.

DURBIN: It definitely should have a conscience clause involved in it so that those providers, doctors and hospitals and others, that cannot in good conscience provide abortion services will not be compelled to. I think that's been our settled situation in America.

MATTHEWS: But should any public program, if there is a public health care program as part of this plan--should any public program pay for abortions?

DURBIN: Well, what it boils down to is whether or not we are going to even allow health insurance policies to cover it. I think as long as the conscience clause is involved in it, then I can stand by it and say that that's acceptable.

Back to Johnson ...

"Congressman Ryan is the front man for a key pro-abortion strategy center, Third Way, and is actively seeking to undercut bona fide pro-life efforts to remove abortion subsidies from the White House-backed health care legislation, as represented by a letter that Ryan instigated to Speaker Pelosi proposing a phony compromise on the issue. One of the signers of the letter, Rep. Kendrick B. Meek, D-Fla., has never voted pro-life on a single abortion-related issue during his entire tenure in Congress, and had voted against the genuine pro-life amendments to the health care bill, in committee, only days earlier. These guys apparently have a lot of confidence that the media will adopt their self-characterizations on any given day of the week without doing any serious checking."