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In 1992, when Bart Stupak was running for his first term in Michigan's 1st Congressional District, Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey Sr. was denied a speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention in New York. Casey was the namesake for a pivotal U.S. Supreme Court case that upheld a state's right to restrict abortions. He accused the Clinton-Gore campaign of excluding him because of his staunchly anti-abortion views.
Ron Frehm, AP
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey Sr. was denied a speaking slot at the 1992 Democratic National Convention in New York. He said he was excluded because of his anti-abortion views.
Two years later, Democrats lost control of the House after 40 years in power.
On Sunday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, an abortion-rights supporter, signed a last-minute deal with Stupak and other anti-abortion-rights Democrats to push the bill past the goal line. It came after pro-choice President Barack Obama agreed to issue an executive order declaring that restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortion will remain unchanged.
Public opinion among Democrats remains strongly in favor of abortion rights. Yet a solid, and consistent, third of self-described Democrats say they oppose abortion on demand.
"The Democratic Party has learned a semipermanent lesson from the Casey disaster of 1992," said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. "Democrats win when they are a broad coalition party -- just like the GOP does when it is truly the 'big tent.' "
It is too early to know whether passing health care reform will be a game-changer for Democrats or a Pyrrhic victory come November. But the maneuvering to get 216 votes and then some underscores a gradual shift in recent years that has included more centrist stances by some Democrats on issues from gun control to flag burning to, in the case of former presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, abortion.
There was no clearer signal of changing times than the 2008 Democratic Convention in Denver, where Casey's son, Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey Jr., was given a prominent speaking slot. He acknowledged disagreeing with Obama on abortion but lauded the presidential candidate's "respect" for those who opposed abortion on moral grounds.
Casey and Nebraska's Ben Nelson, another anti-abortion Democrat, helped draft the abortion language in the Senate bill. Stupak dismissed that as weaker than his own "Stupak amendment" and tried to rework the Senate bill to fit the House version.
That angered abortion-rights Democrats, prompting threats to withhold their votes if Stupak got his way.
"We're not happy with the Nelson language. We're not happy that this president has done an executive order," Illinois Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a leader of the abortion-rights caucus, told AOL News. "But we understand what it was going to take in order to pass this bill."
Obama and Pelosi "decided they had a larger change agenda for right now," said Rachel Laser of the centrist Democratic group Third Way. "Expanding access to abortion was one of the casualties."
Thomas Mann, a political analyst at the Brookings Institution, doesn't see it that way. He said that while 34 Democrats voted against the bill, the speaker had enough support to pass it without the Stupak bloc. Mann noted that "getting them was good for Pelosi and the Democrats because it could let others in tough districts vote no." In exchange, he said, she gave up little on the abortion issue.
House Republicans, who saw Stupak's amendment as the one Democratic initiative they could support, apparently agreed. When GOP leaders tried one more time to delay the health care bill Sunday night, Stupak stood up to call the move "disingenuous." Their tactic, he said, "does not promote life; it is the Democrats who have stood up for the principle of no public funding for abortion."
Texas Republican Rep. Randy Neugebauer called out "baby killer" on the House floor during Stupak's speech. Neugebauer later apologized, but anti-abortion groups were livid. One rescinded an award to Stupak. Others vowed to punish him and his allies in November as part of a wider effort to repeal the whole health plan.
"He made a very deliberate decision to sell out the pro-life movement," said Charmaine Yoest of Americans United for Life. "It was a betrayal of historic proportions."
Angering both the left and the right may be a good thing for Democrats.
"Whenever the purists take charge and start ruling out people because they disagree with a party's views 20 percent of the time, the party will find itself in electoral trouble," Sabato said. "Stupak is a perfect example. He votes with Democrats on almost everything but abortion. Why should Pelosi permanently alienate someone like that?"
