Senator Bob Casey Accused of Abandoning Father's Legacy Against Abortion

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Senator Bob Casey Accused of Abandoning Father's Legacy Against Abortion

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
December 24, 2009

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Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- With today's vote for a health care bill that will force taxpayers, and possible insurance companies, to pay for abortions, some pro-life advocates believe Sen. Bob Casey has officially abandoned any claim he had to the pro-life legacy his father left as a Democrat who opposes abortion.

Casey came to office in 2006 as a Democrat who would supposed continue fighting against abortion in a political party whose leaders and prime supporters love it.

When asked by the Washington Times on Tuesday about what Robert Casey, the late and former Pennsylvania governor, would have thought of the abortion funding in the health care bill, Casey didn't know.

"I have no way of knowing," he told the newspaper.

"We're dealing with something here which is unusual and unprecedented. We've had year to year appropriation bills where the Hyde amendment was attached to year by year appropriation for health and human services. We've never had an exchange before. Never in American history have we had to face… these kinds of questions," he said.

The issue doesn't seem to be as complex for pro-life groups -- all of whom oppose the health care bill, along with the nation's Catholic bishops, because it contains abortion funding.

In the new Times interview, Casey appeared to rely on the mantra that "we at least had good intentions, but our efforts failed" when saying he did his best with the Nelson amendment to stop abortion funding but felt he had to go along with the abortion funding under Nelson's "compromise" after that failed.

"I don't think we should try and accept the notion that the only two options here are what was in the original, the merged bill, which I though didn't get it right and what the House passed," he said. "The idea that we would have that conflict and not have a third way to do this or even a fourth way wasn't the right approach."

Essentially, Casey appears to think that funding abortions or not funding abortions are not the only two options -- as if there could be a way to fund abortions with tax money without actually doing so.

Kerry Picket, the Times staff writer who interviewed Casey, thought so little of Casey's remarks to her that she titled her piece, "Sen. Casey abandons dad's legacy."

"Senator Bob Casey Jr. (D - PA), who came to office as a pro-life Democrat in 2006 under the banner that he would continue his father's fight in pro-life causes has turned out to be pretty disappointing," she wrote Tuesday.

"Apparently, Mr. Casey's 'pro-life' barometer of a 'good agreement' does not mean much," she said about his defense of the pro-abortion compromise language.