The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

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March 23, 2010

Rahall: Health bill the most pro-life vote in his life

By Mannix Porterfield Register-Herald Reporter

Despite his critics, from a political challenger to the National Right to Life Committee, Rep. Nick Rahall insisted Monday that President Obama can block tax dollars from being spent on abortions by invoking the decades-old Hyde amendment in his coveted national health care reform bill.

Rahall came under siege Monday from the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and Republican rival Spike Maynard, largely over what they perceive as a meaningless executive order Obama has pledged to sign to block health care dollars from going into abortions.

“These political hacks are just living in la-la land, when they don’t know what’s going on,” Rahall, D-W.Va., said in a telephone interview.

Three years after Roe v. Wade became the law of the land, Congress enacted the so-called Hyde Amendment, named after Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Ill., which has been used to bar the use of certain federal tax dollars to finance abortions. It is applied to funds annually allocated to the Department of Health and Human Services.

Maynard and Chamber President Steve Roberts charged that Obama’s pledge is a smokescreen, saying he cannot, by executive order, delete part of a bill that comes to his desk.

“That’s completely false,” Rahall responded.

“We have to play reality here in Washington, not fantasy. And the reality is although I would have liked to have seen statutory language — that’s the strongest of all — the reality is you need 60 votes in that other body (Senate) on that issue, about any issue any more, as a matter of fact to even go to the bathroom. The reality is there were only 45 votes for this language. I saw that in previous votes.”

Rahall termed the House version “the next best thing” to statutory language.

“You had six of the most pro-life members of Congress negotiating this with the top legal counsel in the White House, all weekend, past midnight Saturday, and first thing Sunday morning,” the veteran congressman said.

Rahall said the pending Obama executive order will install the existing federal law on abortion funding, the Hyde amendment, which routinely over the years has been supported by Democrats and Republicans alike.

“That’s reality,” he said.

And the amendment will apply to every aspect of the health care package, including the newly created health centers, “which are so important to southern West Virginia, so important to providing health care in rural areas,” the congressman said.

“The executive order reaffirms that the Hyde language shall apply to even future regulations to guide the funding of these community health care centers,” he said.

Rahall imparted a shot at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, saying it spent huge sums of money “trying to defeat what’s in West Virginia’s best interests.”

The health care bill will provide protection to 64,000 uninsured residents of the 3rd District, along with 200,000 who are under-insured, he said.

As for facing a resentful electorate in the fall, as Roberts suggested, Rahall said, “This is not about me. It’s not about the next election.

“And that’s what I, in my conscience, had to decide over the weekend,” he said.

“There is a time when you have to look in your conscience at what you feel is best for the people you represent, for the children, for the uninsured. This was probably in the end, as I decided over the weekend, the most pro-life vote I have made in my 34 years in the Congress.”

— E-mail: mannix@register-herald.com

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