By Dave Andrusko

Groaning, grousing, gnashing of teeth--just a few signs of the angst some pro-abortionists are experiencing as they bemoan the fate of health care "reform." Before we examine "Futile Concessions," written by Michelle Goldberg for The American Prospect, the most important consideration to keep uppermost in our minds is that the battle is far from over.

Pro-abortionists may lament what they say they have already "lost," but we know it's never over until it's over. (If Plan B through Plan Y fail, pro-abortionists will scrounge around for a Plan Z.) More specifically, what they pretend has been shed along the way is either patently false or a reflection of the American people's views.

Goldberg laments that pro-choicers have already given away the store on health care reform. Specifically, "We've reached a point where health-care reform hinges on abortion, but the pro-choice movement loses either way."

How's that? "It can't rally behind the existing legislation. At the same time, because the future of abortion rights in America is deeply entwined with the future of the Democratic Party, the failure of health-care reform, and the consequent weakening of the Democrats, would ultimately be disastrous for choice. It's a total mess."

She spends much of the rest of the essay answering her rhetorical question: "But was it inevitable?" Two points.

First, The reason the pro-life Stupak-Pitts Amendment passed in the House was not because pro-abortionists were insufficiently resolute, but because it reflects where the American people are. Every poll taken screams the same message: the public, regardless of its view on abortion, doesn't want to subsidize the Abortion Industry.

Goldberg bemoans that "the pro-choice movement" did not directly attack the Hyde Amendment; in fact, she says, "The pro-choice movement was left in the perverse position of essentially defending Hyde." How? Because, she says, the phony-baloney "compromise" engineered by pro-abortion Congresswoman Lois Capps represented "a restatement of Hyde that gives nothing to either side."

In fact, the Capps amendment would have guaranteed that two big new government programs would subsidize abortions, and in the case of the public plan, the government would have been paying for them directly. The Senate bill does not have the equivalent of Stupak-Pitts and as such violates the principles of the Hyde Amendment by, among other things, requiring the federal government to pay premiums for private health plans that will cover any or all abortions.

Second, Goldberg makes her preferred course of action clear in the final paragraph. "Meanwhile, instead of acquiescing to the idea that federal funding of abortion is beyond the pale, the pro-choice movement would have forced a debate and possibly pushed the center a bit in the direction of justice."

A frontal assault on Hyde is high on the pro-abortion agenda. The thought that more than a million babies have escaped death because of the Hyde Amendment is a bone in their throat, an affront to their perverse sense of "justice." It really tells you all you need to know about our benighted opposition.

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