If the weekend before the passage of health care reform resembled a nail-biting thriller, its high-speed car chase was the last-minute scramble among Democrats to reach a deal on abortion. It wasn't until six hours before the vote that Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) announced that an agreement had been reached with the White House, ensuring that his block of anti-abortion Democrats would be the decisive votes for the health care bill. Yet even on that tense final day, he found time to speak with a man named Richard Doerflinger. That was no coincidence.
Doerflinger has a lengthy title—he's the associate director of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities. But he's better understood simply as the point man on abortion issues for the most powerful institution in the US Catholic Church. Most people have never heard of him. However, Doerflinger helped write the Stupak amendment in the House bill that placed tight restrictions on insurance coverage of abortion. He amplified spurious charges that the Senate bill would use government money to fund abortions. Doerflinger fought to the bitter end for the Stupak amendment to be included in the final legislation—even after Stupak himself had abandoned the fight. By refusing to compromise on what was, in the end, a minor difference between the House and Senate bills, Doerflinger—the man behind the curtain of the abortion imbroglio—very nearly killed health care reform.
rest at http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/03/richard-doerflinger-man-who-almost-killed-health-care-reform
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