Why Stupak Held Out for "Meaningless" Executive Order on Abortion

Slate Magazine: The Stupak Mystery, by Timothy Noah:

Why did he hold out for a meaningless executive order?

A lot of people are scratching their heads about the executive order Rep. Bart Stupak extracted from President Obama as a condition of supporting health care reform. "It's not clear the executive order changes anything," writes the New Republic's Jon Cohn. I'd have to agree. So why did Stupak hold out for it?

Here's my best guess: Stupak was holding out not for language that merely reaffirmed what the Senate bill already says, but for language that delinked the fate of health reform's abortion ban from the fate of the Hyde Amendment. As I've explained before, the Hyde Amendment is not a permanent ban on government (actually, just Health and Human Services) funding of abortions. It's a ban that gets attached to appropriations bills and therefore must be renewed year after year. In the Senate bill, the ban on government funding of abortions through the new health insurance exchanges is dependent on the Hyde Amendment's renewal. The word "abortion" is defined "based on the law [governing HHS appropriations] as in effect as of the date that is six months before the beginning of the plan year involved." (This is on Page 119.) If Congress fails to renew the Hyde Amendment in any given year, the abortion ban in the health care reform bill will vanish. . . .