Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum tells National Review Online that Sen. Bob Casey’s brokering of a potential compromise on the Senate health-care bill’s abortion language is a “betrayal” to the pro-life cause.
Casey, the Democrat who defeated Santorum in 2006, has been negotiating the bill’s abortion language in recent days with Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.), a key undecided vote in the Democratic caucus. According to the Washington Post, Casey “proposed a compromise that would more clearly segregate public and private funds in the new insurance exchanges for individuals who do not have access to affordable coverage through an employer,” as well as create “a temporary $1,000 increase in the tax credit for adoptive parents and a new federal fund to assist teenagers, college students or victims of domestic violence who are pregnant and without resources.”
Nelson told a radio station in his home state on Thursday that Casey’s outreach “isn’t sufficient” and that “the basic question about the funding of abortion has not been answered yet.”
“The premise of these negotiations is to get Nelson language that will provide him cover without doing anything to protect babies,” says Santorum. “Bob Casey Sr. built up great will in the pro-life community. Now his son is using his name to give cover to a bill that does great harm the pro-life cause. It’s worse than betrayal. The abortion language he’s proposing doesn’t solve any of the problems. It’s clearly a ruse. Senator Nelson, seemingly the only pro-life Democrat left in the Senate, is right. Senator Casey simply sees expanding government as more important than innocent babies.”
“It’s deeply disappointing that a man who ran in 2006 as a pro-life Democrat under his father’s banner now is leading the subterfuge on Capitol Hill,” adds Santorum. “It was remarkable how the late Governor Casey stood up to Bill Clinton on this important issue. Here we are again debating health care and there is nobody like him left. Bob Casey Sr. was for national health care. He was a liberal. But he didn’t compromise on his principles just to pass a bill. That’s what Senator Casey is doing.”