By Terence P. Jeffrey,CNS News
Obama simply meant that his bill wouldn’t fund abortion
Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) told CNSNews.com that President Barack Obama told him in a telephone conversation that when he said in his Sept. 9 speech to a joint session of Congress that “under our plan no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions” he was not talking about the actual bill drafted in the House but about the president’s own health care plan—which has never been written.
“I don’t know if it is a game of semantics or what,” Stupak said of Obama’s nationally televised declaration to Congress that the health-care plan will not allow federal funding of abortion.
Both the House and Senate versions of the health-care bill permit federal funds to pay for insurance plans that cover abortions.
In his speech to the joint session of Congress,Obama directly rebutted the claim that the plan would fund abortions,calling it a “misunderstanding.” But in his later telephone conversation with Stupak,according to the congressman,Obama said that when he claimed in the speech that the plan would not fund abortions he was not talking about the House plan,he was talking about his own plan.