Politico: Doyle key to Stupak-W.H. deal
By Politico Contributor
“The fate of health care reform may have turned on a single relationship.
When they needed to find a way to unlock the votes of a group of anti-abortion lawmakers led by Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, Democratic leaders turned to Stupak’s roommate, Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Doyle, to facilitate the critical talks.
Doyle urged Stupak to write his own version of an executive order that would bridge the abortion divide by reinforcing a ban on the use of federal funds for abortion – a plan that was circulating at the highest levels of the West Wing earlier this week.
‘The president’s decision to issue an executive order designed to assuage Rep. Stupak and his cohorts is a betrayal of millions of women across this country and of his campaign promises,’ Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights in New York said in a statement released Sunday evening. ‘The order lends credibility to an already impossibly flawed policy that punishes and discriminates against poor women by denying them the full range of reproductive health services and their constitutional right.’” Read more at Politico >,
