Senate Rejects Pro-Life Amendment

Late today, the Senate voted 54-45 to table the Nelson-Hatch Amendment - a pro-life measure designed to keep abortion from becoming a mandatory health care benefit.

The vote reflects a callous disregard for the protection of innocent human life.  It is clear most Americans do not want abortion classified as a mandatory health care benefit.  The House understood this in passing the Stupak-Pitts Amendment.  Sadly, the Senate chose to ignore the concerns of the American people and refused to approve an Amendment that would have put into place much-needed pro-life protections in the Senate's version of health care reform.  Rejecting this Amendment is disappointing, but not surprising.
 
With this vote, we now call on pro-life Democrats - including Sen. Nelson, co-sponsor of the Amendment, to follow through with the promise to reject the Senate's health care measure because it fails to exclude abortion funding.

The battle over health care reform is far from over.  We will continue to oppose the Senate's health care bill and continue to work to ensure that a final version of health care to be considered at some point by Congress includes the pro-life protections so many Americans demand.

We're grateful to the thousands who have signed on to our petition in the past few days opposing this troubling action in the Senate.  As you also know, many of you were among the nearly 170,000 Americans who signed on to our petition just weeks ago opposing the abortion funding in the House bill. 

We will have a complete report on the Senate vote and what it means on Wednesday's broadcast of Jay Sekulow Live!