Like it or not, the healthcare debate has turned into a fracas over abortion rights.

U.S. House Democratic leaders had hoped to avoid just that in their push to expand healthcare coverage and reform the health insurance market.

But getting the votes to pass the historic legislation on Saturday boiled down to settling a dispute between pro-choice and pro-life forces over abortion.

Abortion foes won. The House passed an amendment restricting the availability of insurance policies that include elective abortion services even though many medical plans currently offer such coverage.

The debate over abortion highlights broader questions surrounding the government’s reach in healthcare.  Once the government starts subsidizing insurance premiums, it will dictate what can and cannot be included in that coverage.

Democrat Congressman Louis Capps underscored that in arguing the amendment “will mean more women will have their reproductive health choices made by politicians and anti-choice zealots in Washington, DC, instead of by themselves and their doctors.”

With abortion-rights supporters vowing to strip the amendment out of the bill as it moves through the legislative process, the debate now shifts over to the Senate.

Senate Democratic leaders are struggling to build enough support for the healthcare overhaul to overcome procedural hurdles that stand in the way of major legislation.

The biggest point of contention has been whether the government should offer a new health plan option.  But the abortion debate will likely prove impossible to avoid.

Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, acknowledged the issue will come up when the Senate takes up healthcare reform possibly as early as next week.

“It is an issue that we are going to have to deal with over here,” he said. “Senator Reid will need to talk to his caucus about how to proceed.”

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Photo credit: Reuters/Yuri Gripas ( U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi following House vote on healthcare reform legislation)

President Barack Obama heads to Africa on Friday on the final stop of a weeklong trip that included visits to Russia and Italy, but before leaving Rome he will visit with Pope Benedict.

Obama has had an uneasy relationship with some Roman Catholics because of his support for abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research, which the church opposes.

He faced protesters when he gave a graduation speech at Notre Dame University, although his call for a “fair-minded” discussion on abortion earned several standing ovations.

But his relations with the Vatican have been cordial and he has spoken to the pope on the telephone. Obama told reporters before the trip that “there are going to be some areas where we’ve got deep agreements, there are going to be some areas where we’ve got some disagreements.”

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- Photo credit: Reuters/Osservatore Romano

Even though it was expected, it was still a jolt: GM declared bankruptcy this morning, the third-largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history and the biggest ever in U.S. manufacturing.

Unthinkable a decade ago, now General Motors is yet another casualty of the cratered U.S. economy, with taxpayers putting up $30 billion for a 60 percent stake in the company. The GM filing followed just hours after a bankruptcy judge approved the sale of virtually all of automaker Chrysler’s assets to a group led by Italy’s Fiat SpA.

Within minutes of the filing, the headlines were rocketing around the Web:
The Washington Post: “Filing Marks the End of Financial Independence for Industrial Icon”
The New York Times: “A Risky Bet to Save an Icon of American Capitalism”
The Drudge Report led its page with a photo of the GM logo under a U.S. flag, headlined: “Government Motors.”

It wasn’t a total blue Monday for the U.S. economy, though, as consumer spending eased and personal income rose in April, the largest increase in almost a year.

President Barack Obama, fresh from a slightly controversial “date night” in New York City over the weekend, will be talking about the automotive industry at the White House around midday, before an afternoon visit to the National Naval Medical Center. The Senate returns from recess today, with the House still out.

Moving back to work after a gorgeous weekend in the Washington DC area, the morning television shows led with the disappearance of an Air France passenger jet over the Atlantic on its way from Brazil to Paris. There was condemnation of the fatal shooting of Dr. George Tiller, one of very few U.S. physicians who performed late-term abortions, who was gunned down at his church on Sunday. And there was also the inevitable post-mortem of the “Britain’s Got Talent” contest result on Saturday, in which sudden media star Susan Boyle sang well but not well enough to ace out Diversity, the winning dance troupe.

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Photo credit: Photographer: REUTERS/Rebecca Cook (’Buy American’ sign, in support of Detroit’s auto industry, is seen in the back of an auto scrap yard in Detroit, Michigan May 18, 2009.)

America may have a president and Congress that support abortion rights, but a new Gallup poll suggests that for the first time such a stance is not the majority view.

Gallup said on Friday that a new poll, conducted May 7 to 10, found "51 percent of Americans calling themselves 'pro-life' on the issue of abortion and 42 percent 'pro-choice.' This is the first time a majority of U.S. adults have identified themselves as pro-life since Gallup began asking this question in 1995."

"The new results, obtained from Gallup's annual Values and Beliefs survey, represent a significant shift from a year ago, when 50 percent were pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life. Prior to now, the highest percentage identifying as pro-life was 46 percent, in both August 2001 and May 2002."

Underscoring how divisive the issue remains, the poll further found that 23 percent of Americans felt abortion should be illegal in all circumstances and 22 percent said it should be legal in all circumstances.

Still, it found that 53 percent held to a middle view -- that is should be legal in certain circumstances. That figure, Gallup said, has been steady since 1975.

A few other things stand out. The percentage of Republicans and those who lean to that party who lablel themselves "pro-life" rose by 10 percentage points over the past year to 70 percent. As there was essentially no shift among Democrats on this issue (33 percent said they were "pro-life," unchanged since last year) much of the shift clearly came from the Republican side. Does this suggest a hardening among the party faithful, whose numbers have also been in decline, in reaction to the Democratic administration of President Barack Obama?

Much of the opposition to abortion in America has been faith-based, led mostly though not exclusively by conservative Catholics and evangelicals. The latter in particular have for decades been a key base of support for the Republican Party.

There has been much recent talk among the media and Republican strategists that the party needs to move away from divisive social issues like abortion and gay marriage in a bid to broaden a base which many see as shrinking. This poll will be ammunition for those who say the party needs to stick its guns on these issues.

The findings are sure to stir both sides of this emotional debate, especially as Obama seeks to fill a new vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, where the legality of issues such as abortion can ultimately be decided.

Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst - An anti-abortion protester holds a sign in front of the US Supreme Court building during the March for Life in Washington, D.C., January 22, 2009. 

Nearly a year after becoming the most celebrated pregnant, unmarried teenager in the United States, Bristol Palin is launching off on a campaign to encourage teens NOT to have sex to avoid getting pregnant.

After shying away from the spotlight since her mother Sarah — John McCain’s vice presidential running mate — announced that her then 17-year-old daughter was pregnant, Bristol did a series of interviews today to announce explain her plans.

“Regardless of what I did personally, I just think that abstinence is the only way that you can effectively, 100 percent foolproof way to prevent pregnancy,” she said on ABC’s “Good Morning America”, while avoiding a direct answer to a question about how she ended up expecting.

“I want to go out there and promote abstinence and just say - this is the safest choice. This is going to prevent teen pregnancy and prevent a lot of heartache,” she said. “Learn from my example.”

Asked if she thought her pregnancy was a mistake she said on NBC’s “Today Show” about her son Tripp: “He’s not a mistake, he’s a blessing. But it’s just a lot of work, a lot of responsibility … it’s not like an accessory on your hip, it’s hard work.”

Palin said telling her parents she was pregnant was “harder than labor” and one of the most difficult things she ever had to do.

“I hope that me speaking out now will prevent girls from having to do that in the future.”

Bristol declined to give any details about her relationship with Tripp’s father, Levi Johnston, who has made his own circuit of the television chat shows in recent weeks.

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Photo credit: REUTERS/John Gress (Bristol Palin holds her baby brother Trig at campaign event last year)

Michael Steele has gone and put his foot in his mouth again.

In an interview with GQ magazine, the Republican National Committee chairman described abortion as an “individual choice” and said individual states should decide its legality.

Those comments, predictably, have drawn a sharp rebuke from other Republican leaders who say he should stick to the party’s core position that abortion should be outlawed nationwide.

“Chairman Steele, as the leader of America’s pro-life conservative party, needs to re-read the Bible, the U.S. Constitution, and the 2008 GOP Platform. He then needs to get to work — or get out of the way,” said former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, a former rival for the RNC job.

Mike Huckabee called Steele’s remarks troubling. “For Chairman Steele to even infer that taking a life is totally left up to the individual is not only a reversal of Republican policy and principle, but it’s a violation of the most basic of human rights,” the former Arkansas governor and presidential candidate said on his blog.

Steele was widely praised as an eloquent speaker when he was elected as chairman of the Republican Party at the end of January. But since then, he’s spent plenty of time apologizing for off-hand comments that have angered many in the party and prompted some to suggest that he should resign.

In a statement sent out Thursday, Steele said he has always opposed abortion and said the Supreme Court decision that made it legal should be repealed. “The Republican Party is and will continue to be the party of life,” he said.

Also on Thursday, Steele named Rhode Island lawyer Ken McKay as his chief of staff to oversee the committee’s day-to-day operations. McKay managed the 2002 and 2006 campaigns of that state’s governor, Donald Carcieri, and served as his chief of staff.

The appointment sends a message to those who have called for Steele’s resignation: he doesn’t plan to go anywhere for a while.

photo credit: REUTERS/Molly Riley (Steele speaks after being elected Republican National Committee chairman in Washington, January 30)

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Republican Marilyn Musgrave, who was defeated in last year’s election for a Colorado seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, has found a new job — director of a project to unseat other members of Congress.

Musgrave, who lost the congressional seat she had first won in 2002 to Democrat Betsy Markey after a close and bitter campaign marked by negative attack ads,  will head up a project of the anti-abortion group, the Susan B. Anthony List, to target congressional seats in the next election cycle.

“With this new program we are going to go into districts where people are likely to be vulnerable, and we are going to give those families a clear message as to how these congressmen and women are voting,” Musgrave said to reporters.

“We are going to say very clearly that these votes do have consequences as we use every form of media to defeat these people who are pro-abortion,” she said.

President Barack Obama angered abortion opponents by lifting some restrictions on the use of federal funds for embryonic stem cell research. A contentious issue during the debate over a $410 billion spending bill, signed into law by Obama this week, was money included for a U.N. family planning agency that Republicans were concerned could fund organizations that supported abortion.

Officials with the Susan B. Anthony List, a political action committee with the goal of helping “pro-life” women candidates get elected to Congress, could not say which elected officials the new project intended to target or how much money would be spent to do it. But they expressed concern over policies of Obama and the Democratically-led Congress.

“As we look at this new administration, his appointments are appalling in regard to the life issue,” Musgrave said.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Anti-abortion protester in front of U.S. Supreme Court)

The U.S. Democratic Party has gained a larger following over the past two decades but America's ideological landscape has remained largely unchanged over the past two decades, according to a new report by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. You can see the analysis here.

What is of interest for readers of this blog may be the implications of this "cultural trench warfare" -- with neither side gaining much ground from the other -- for red-hot social issues such as abortion rights and the future prospects for both the Republicans and the Democrats.

"The Democratic Party's advantage in party identification has widened over the past two decades, but the share of Americans who describe their political views as liberal, conservative or moderate has remained stable during the same period. Only about one-in-five Americans currently call themselves liberal (21 percent), while 38 percent say they are conservative and 36 percent describe themselves as moderate. This is virtually unchanged from recent years; when George W. Bush was first elected president, 18 percent of Americans said they were liberal, 36 percent were conservative and 38 percent considered themselves moderate," the report, released late on Tuesday, says.

On the divisive issue of abortion rights, the report, using survey data from October, said 57 percent of Americans believed it should be legal. Breaking opinion up by ideology, it found that 43 percent of conservatives were in favour of it being legal while 77 percent of self-described liberals held that view.

This is not surprising -- there are many Americans who regard themselves as economic or "tough on crime" or national security conservatives who still support abortion rights. What may surprise some is that 19 percent of liberals feel it should be illegal. These could be people influenced by Catholic social teaching or other trends who regard themselves as liberal on most issues but not this one.

For all the talk of an emerging evangelical center, the report says that: "White evangelical Protestants are the most conservative Republicans: 79 percent describe their political views as conservative, compared with 17 percent who say they are moderate and just two percent who call themselves liberal."

This suggests that they will remain a key Republican Party base -- but in an age of cultural trench warfare, can the party rely on this base to propel itself back into power? On the other hand, the survey's findings certainly reinforce the wide perception that America is a "center right" country. Maybe that helps to explain the Democratic Party's subtle shift on abortion rights to an emphasis on reducing the number of abortions and talk of it being a "tragic choice?" If you can't win them outright, do you need to find common ground in the no-man's land between the trenches?

Does it also mean both sides are "dug in" for the long haul as they are winning few ideological converts from the other ? What do you think?

DALLAS - Catholics for Obama has just launched a web site as the Nov. 4 White House race between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain enters its final laps.

Catholics, who account for close to a quarter of the U.S. adult population, comprise a key religious group that both sides have tried to woo. In closely contested swing states such as Ohio or Florida the Catholic vote could make a difference.

The web site is sure to stoke controversy in Catholic circles with this statement: “Is Barack Obama really pro-life? The answer is ‘yes.’ Looking through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching, Senator Obama has spent his entire career striving for the common good. He supports health care programs that will cover all Americans, a living wage for working families, and solutions that allow distressed families to stay in their homes.” 

It goes on to say that Obama, a strong advocate like his party of abortion rights, will reduce the number of abortions by promoting health care for pregnant women and infant care.

Abortion is one of the most polarizing issues in America and official Catholic doctrine on the matter is clear: the church regards it as murder.

Archbishop Raymond Burke, a senior American in the Vatican, recently said the Democratic Party risked “transforming itself definitively into a ‘party of death’” because of its choices on bioethical questions and abortion.

Echoing several U.S. bishops, Burke accused the Democratic Party’s most high-profile Catholics — vice presidential candidate Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — of misrepresenting Church teaching on abortion. 

McCain and his running mate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are both staunchly opposed to abortion rights and the Republican Party often does well with conservative Catholics who vote largely on this issue.

But the flock itself is far more divided on the issue which can help Obama build on the leads he already has in most national polls with Catholic voters.

Photo Credit: Reuters/Jim Young. Obama speaks at campaign rally in Miami, Oct. 21, 2008.

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DALLAS - Barack Obama and John McCain got a chance during their third presidential debate on Wednesday night to directly address their respective bases when they were asked about abortion.

Moderator Bob Schieffer, who noted that Democrat Obama supports the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court Roe vs Wade decision that grants women a constitutional right to an abortion, while the Republican McCain opposes it, asked: “Could either of you ever nominate someone to the Supreme Court who disagrees with you on this issue?”

Both candidates said they would not apply ”litmus tests” if they were to select justices for the top U.S. court, whose nine members are currently almost evenly divided between conservatives and liberals.

“I would consider anyone in their qualifications.  I do not believe that someone who has supported Roe v. Wade that would be part of those qualifications.  But I certainly would not impose any litmus test,” McCain said.

Obama said: “I am somebody who believes that Roe versus Wade was rightly decided … what ultimately I believe is that women in consultation with their families, their doctors, their religious advisers, are in the best position to make this decision.”

Abortion is one of the most emotive and partisan issues in America. Most Democrats support abortion rights; the Republican Party is opposed to abortion rights and its conservative Christian wing is especially vocal and activist in this regard.

It is an issue that can engergize the bases of both parties, but amid worsening economic news and a plunging stock market, neither candidate has been paying it much attention.

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 Photo credit: Reuters/Gary Hershorn