Pat Dollard

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Life News:

Washington, DC — Bart Stupak is now a household name thanks to the amendment he sponsored to the House health care bill that bears his moniker. The House approved his amendment to de-fund abortions in the government-run health care program and he is warning abortion advocates not to remove it.

Pro-Life lawmakers teamed up with Stupak, a Michigan Democratic congressman, for the amendment to stop abortion funding in the public option and affordability credits.

However, as they and pro-life groups expected beforehand, abortion advocates have threatened to remove the amendment in the conference committee that produces the final bill both the House and Senate will eventually have to approve.

Stupak warns them not to do that.

“We are in contact with senators to make sure our language holds,” Stupak told the Detroit News. “The other side is playing with fire.”

“We are sticking to our principles,” Stupak said in defense of his amendment.

In previous comments shortly after the vote, Stupak was more forthright.

“We won because [the Democrats] need us,” says Mr. Stupak. “If they are going to summarily dismiss us by taking the pen to that language, there will be hell to pay. I don’t say it as a threat, but if they double-cross us, there will be 40 people who won’t vote with them the next time they need us—and that could be the final version of this bill.”

Stupak declined to say if he would vote for the final version of the health care bill if it did not include his abortion funding ban, but said he would definitely have voted no last weekend on the bill it approved without it.

Douglas Johnson, the legislative director of the National Right to Life, told the Detroit News that pro-life advocates should applaud Stupak — calling him “fearless” and “heroic.”

“We expect this to be a big fight in the Senate, and in the (House-Senate) conference,” Johnson said. “Bart Stupak has been absolutely fearless in resisting every sort of pressure.”