At a health care town hall in October last year, Rep. Bart Stupak made it clear that he intended to vote for comprehensive health reform even if the language of the bill left the door open to taxpayer-funded abortions.
“If everything I want [is] in the final bill, I like everything in the bill except you have public funding for abortion, and we had a chance to run our amendment and we lost. OK, I voted my conscience, stayed true to my principles, stayed true to the beliefs of this district, could I vote for healthcare? Yes I still could,” Stupak said at the town hall meeting in Cheboyan, Michigan.
The remarks, which received criticism from all five of the people in attendance at the town hall, are now drawing fire on a much larger stage because they appear to contradict Stupak’s insistence throughout the past week that he would vote “no” on health care reform unless guarantees that the bill would not fund abortions were made.
Stupak ultimately voted “yes” on the health care bill after President Obama agreed to sign an executive order that essentially promised that the language of the Senate bill would be enforced by the administration — a token promise, many say, that gave Sestak the political cover he needed to announce support for the sweeping bill.
Now some are wondering if Stupak’s ‘principled stand’ against abortion language in the bill was a ruse to score political points with the pro-life crowd while still supporting the health-care legislation. Stupak’s congressional challenger has already gained thousands of fans on Facebook since Sunday’s vote.
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