Stupak Will Vote for Reform Even With Abortion Coverage

This article first appeared in the Michigan Independent and is reprinted as part of a partnership between RH Reality Check, the Michigan Independent and the Center for Independent Media.

Congressman Bart Stupak says that while he is leading the charge to prevent any healthcare reform from using tax payer funds for abortion, if health care reform legislation makes it to the floor of the U.S. Congress and includes funding for abortions, he will support it.

In a video featured on the conservative blog RightMichigan.com, Stupak, a Democrat from Menominee, says:

“I offered 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 that vote– we 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 I probably would not. I probably would still vote for the health care bill at the end of the day.”

This is another moment of message confusion from Stupak and the abortion question. In July Michigan Messenger reported that Stupak had entered into negotiations with Congressman Henry Waxman about the fate of health care and state abortion laws.

That happened after Stupak, co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus, sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying any health care reform bill that contained provisions to fund abortions would be “unacceptable.”

Stupak’s response to the audience that at the end of the day, having been given an opportunity to vote on the abortion issue and lost, he would support the health care reform was greeted with jeers from the audience. The video was shot at a Cheboygan town hall meeting Oct. 23, and was presented by the Heritage Foundation’s blog The Foundry.