Stupak Amendment Will Be Removed, Period.

[Lyric]

It HAS to be. Forty-one House Democrats have signed a letter vowing to vote against the final passage of the bill if it includes the Stupak Amendment or any OTHER amendment that restricts abortion access beyond what the current law already does. In fact, those initial 41 signatories were the ones who signed the letter at almost exactly the same time that the bill passed. The letter is still circulating around for more signatures, so there's a good chance that the 41 number will get bigger.

Assuming that we can take the opposition at its word (and on this issue, I think we can) basic mathematics can predict the outcome pretty easily. The number of Congresspeople who have vowed to vote against the bill if it includes anything like the Stupak Amendment would be MORE than enough to completely derail the bill when added to the Republicans who we already KNOW are going to vote against it; Obama and the House leadership know this. Obama isn't stupid. He's not going to let his bill die over something like this, and he's also not going to change minds about it. These people care enough about choice to draw a public line in the sand, and that kind of intense conviction is practically unshakable. Anti-choicers aren't the only ones who feel passionately about this issue, after all.

So, the Stupak Amendment won't be there in the end, and neither will anything else that resembles it. Unmarried low-income families are still thoroughly screwed (especially GLBT ones) but at least we won't be handing the psychotic right-wing an effortless anti-choice victory on a silver platter. At least women will still be able to choose an insurance plan that covers abortion. Or at least the ones who can afford the premiums, at any rate.