Opinion: Anti-abortion Democrat Bart Stupak has a problem with Obama’s health reforms

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As far as northern Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak is concerned, no federal funding for abortions has been the law of the land since 1976.

And as far as Stupak is concerned, his fellow Democrat Barack Obama agreed that the president’s idea of healthcare reform does not include federal funding of abortion.

But that seems about to change.

Stupak is a nine-term representative, a Catholic and a former police officer, who’s destroyed recent Republican opponents with up to 69% of the vote.

Stupak says he’s run up against a stonewall with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other fellow Democrats in seeking to protect that 33-year-old ban in the evolving healthcare reform legislation.

He says he’s got 40 fellow House members who stand with him, most of them who’ll vote against any reform bill without the antiabortion protection. And Stupak asserts he’s prepared to lose his job over this stand.

Actually, he puts it pretty clearly and succinctly himself on this C-SPAN video. See what he says: right here

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Video courtesy of C-SPAN.