| Congresswoman DeGette: Absolutely. Absolutely. No question about it, Because I had quite a few people say to me 'This is just Hyde.' And I was running around... Most people found out about this on Saturday morning, when they got there, because the decision was made late Friday night, and I was literally running around, trying to tell people what it did.
At the same time, a lot of people were being pressured by their bishops, which, you know, that's a whole different thing. So they thought, 'Well if this is just Hyde, then no big deal.' But I had several people after that vote say to me... people who voted for Stupak, they said, 'This needs to be fixed by the conference.'
And we have several people who have 100% pro-choce voting records who voted for it.
So that's when I did my letter, saying, 'okay, you know what, if these restrictions are in the conference report, we've got 41 so far Democrat who will not vote for the conference report.
But having said that, I think we can work this out. You know Congressman Stupak seems pretty firm in his views, but frankly we already compromised in the Energy and Commerce Committee on the Caps Amendment, which said that all of the funds will be separated, so no federal funds can be used to pay for abortion. So we felt like we compromised to the Hyde language.
If people have ideas about how we can make that more clear, we'd be happy to make it more clear. We can talk about it. We don't want to kill this bill. But were not going to let this wonderful health care bill be the vehicle to restrict a woman's right to get full reproductive services.
Open Left: One thing that sticks out, though is the question can those people who signed your letter really be counted on to stand firm, because progressivcs were going to stand firm for a robust pubic option linked to Medicare rates, and that didn't happen. So that puts a lot of doubt out there.
Congresswoman DeGette: Let me tell you this. After this vote happened on the House floor, I think that the.. this isn't a matter of how you tie the reimbursement to doctors, this is a matter of a fundamental right that women have, by the Constitution. And I think what happend when the Stupak Amendment passed, was the progressives and liberals in the caucus, said, "Enough!' And I collected d those 41 signatures in one hour on the floor. People were mad.
So what I would say is I don't think people should mess with this one.
This isn't like how do you settle reimbursements. This is like do you let a woman with her own private money buy a policy that's going to give her full reproductive care.
So I guess I would say we're really furious here. I didn't sign any of these other letters, even though I supported the robust public option, and I would have voted for single payer Amendment, and all of that. That's not fundamental to me like this is.
I think that the leadership and that the White House knows we are serious. And the other thing is, we can work this out. That's the other thing I would say. This is not a hard thing to resolve.
If people think there is a more clear or strong language that can be put into the bill, to preserve the separation of the funds, we could do that. We're willing to compromise to say 'no federal funds shall be used for abortion.' We're not willing to take it any firther.
Open Left: In light of all the turmoil that's happened since then this week, what's your perspective on where things stand now? Will it be resolved with Senate language? Conference language? What should people expect?
Congresswoman DeGette: I think this is a process I think the American people have gotten a good lesson as to the legislative process, here. The next thing that will happen is that the senate will come up with their bill. I expect they'll have their own language in there. And then the bill will go to conference, and the differences will be resolved.
Congressman Stupak talks like since he passed this language in the House then it's immutable. And in fact, that's not the way the process works with anything in the bill. The Senate's going to have its own version of everything. And then we're going to have to work it out in conference.
It'd be like if we said--I wish we could say this, you know-'We got a good public option in the bill, and since we passed it, Senate, you can't change it. I wish that could happen, but that's not going to happen in this situation. I know it's going to be a negotiation. And the same thing with all the language. But that's what compromise in the legislative process is all about.
Open Left: If we've got more time for one more thing, a bit off this topic, you've been a congressional leader on the issue of stem cell research. It seems that the magnitude of this issue is generally not appreciated by media or the public. Could you briefly address why it's so important and how many people it could affect?
Congresswoman DeGette: Well, 110 million American peole and their families suffer-either directly or indirectly-from diseased that could be helped by embryonic stem cell research, and by reversing President Bush's restrictions President Obama was immediately able to get federal money going into this research. And some of the stimulus money was used, and then the regular NIH [National Institutes of Health] money was used.
Not only does this help US researchers begin to really do very aggressive stem cell research. It also helps in their collaboration around the world
Because before, with President Bush's restrictions, people could not work with the US researchers because the other scientists might not be using these cell lines.
This has opened up up a huge field of research, and I'm very excited. I was in Stockholm, in August giving a speech on stem cell research, and met with the people at Karolinska Institute, and they're doing all kids of really exciting cutting edge research, a lot of it in collaboration with US scientists. |
After passage of the Stupak-Pitts Amendment and the House Health Care Reform bill, Congresswoman Diana DeGette, Democratic Deputy Whip and Co-chair of the Pro-Choice Caucus, announced 
