If the new health care marvel of the age programme is not going to fund abortions. . .

. . . .than why is the amendment embodying that provision continually stonewalled and not brought to the floor?

Bill McGurn's column asks the question here.

That is just what Mr. Stupak [a Democratic congressman from northern Michigan] is trying to do with an amendment to the health-care legislation would explicitly ban federal funding for abortion. Here's the problem: His own party won't let him bring it to the floor for a vote. It's a replay of earlier this year, when the leadership blocked a similar Stupak effort on a financial appropriations bill that ended up removing restrictions on D.C. taxpayer funding for abortion.

"The most frustrating thing is we go to the Rules Committee, they smile and say 'thank you,' and then we're left at the door," says Mr. Stupak. "At least give us a chance to let people debate and vote."

The effort to suppress Mr. Stupak's amendment is particularly ironic given the pledges Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes in her manifesto "A New Direction for America." In this document, she asserts that "no Member of Congress should be silenced on the floor." She also calls for a "full amendment process."

Last week Mr. Stupak, 24 other Democrats and 158 Republicans sent the speaker a letter asking her to make good on that pledge. Members of the House, they said, should have the "right to vote their conscience on an amendment offered by Congressmen Stupak and [Joe] Pitts [R., Pa.] regarding government funding for abortion."