Murphy considering Stupak amendment (updated)

The House of Representatives is in session today (Saturday) and will apparently take up Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak's anti-abortion amendment to the health-care reform bill. I tried calling Rep. Paul Tonko's Washington office this morning at (202) 225-5076, but just got through to a machine which said I couldn't leave a message. I did leave a message on his cellphone. After a couple of tries I managed to get through to the office of another Democratic member, Rep. Scott Murphy, at (202) 225-5614, where someone told me the congressman was considering the matter. If these guys are moderates on this issue  --and Tonko in the Assembly did vote for a bill that didn't pass which would have banned partial-birth abortion -- they will vote for the Stupak amendment. The same applies to Bill Owens, the new congressman from the North Country, and other supposedly moderate Democrats.

Update: Murphy, Tonko and Owens all voted against the Stupak amendment. It passed anyway, however, greatly improving the bill and enhancing its prospects.

Comments

[Molly]

So Murphy votes against the Stupak amendment, and then votes against the entire bill as well? What's his reasoning? He would have voted for it had the Stupak amendment passed? Or he's trying to play it both ways? Vote against Stupak to shore up his liberal credentials, yet vote against the overall bill to try and appease conservative voters in NY-20? Either way it seems like a weasly thing to do. Go one way or the other, Murphy.

[Brian]

Molly, I suspect his against the Stupak amendment was related to the fact that single-issue voters of the anti-abortion variety were far less likely to vote for him anyway than single-issue voters of the abortion rights variety.

By contrast, economic (but not necessarily social) conservatives are the key to winning election in this district. And they oppose any meaningful health care reform so that's why he voted against the bigger bill. He knows it will piss off liberals but that they will end up supporting him anyway because they always do (and the prospect of a Dem repeat of the GOP civil war in places like NY23 will make them bite their tongue even harder).

[Matthew]

PlanetAlbany,

Respectfully, how can you support pro-life specifically on "the grounds that its murder" yet in the same breath be in favor of capital punishment & still continue the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan? How come you are strangely silent on the Darfur issues?

[Bob Conner]

Matt, what you put in quotes is not from anything I wrote. I don't call abortion murder, because that is a legal term. Nor am I in favor of capital punishment, although I don't think it inconsistent to favor one and oppose the other. As for Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur, those are complicated questions. For example, if we intervened to stop the killing in Darfur, that would involve going to war with the government of Sudan, just as we would have had to go to war with Rwanda if we had intervened there in the 1990s. I don't say I oppose intervention. Unless you are a pacifist, questions of war and peace are always complicated, and I don't think it helpful to call the people who disagree with you on a particular situation murderers..

[Matthew]

For the sake of arguement, let's change the quotes to "abortion is killing life" which I distinctly remember you saying.

Is it not hypocritical (when strictly using that line of reasoning) to support capital punishment? Is it not by extension, state sanctioned killing?

Could that argument not be extended to your initial Iraq position? Unlike Afghanistan & Darfur, the latter of which we are not currently involved in, Iraq was a war of choice. You certainly were in favor of it right up until the moment, things got quite a bit tougher & people started dying. Its like, what the heck were you expected? Unfortunately, that's what war is. At its core, its about eliminating the other guy before they get you (& your friends).

**This might make for an interesting journal topic in & of itself, should you wish to go that route.**

[Bob Conner]

I brought up Darfur because you did. Here's a column on current situation there:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/12/AR2009111209826.html
, which sure ain't good. As for Afghanistan and Iraq, once you intervene there are costs of withdrawal, too, which could involve the mass murder of your allies. I certainly don't claim to have all the answers, and don't believe anyone else does either, be they neocon, realist or liberal, hawk, dove or pacifist.