Last week, after our junior Senator Ted Kaufman surprised us by voting for the Nelson-Stupak amendment in the Senate, I fired off an email to his office asking for clarification of his pro-choice stance.
Finally, after a week, his deputy press secretary, Misty Seemans responded. But before getting to the response, I must say, that is an awesome porn name. It almost made me doubt Kaufman’s office was the sender of the email. I am actually shocked it did not end up in spam filter. But I digress…
His response:
“I do not believe taxpayers’ dollars should be used to pay for elective abortions, including buying insurance coverage of such abortions.”
Sigh. First, that is not what you voted for Senator. You voted for an amendment that limits private insurance coverage of abortions. Yes, I can understand not wanting public dollars going to funding abortions. That policy has been in place for 33 years in the form of the Hyde Amendment. You were serving as then Senator Biden’s chief of staff when the aforesaid policy of not allowing federal dollars to go to paying for abortions was enacted, so you have to know about it. So your excuse for selling out women does not hold water, unless you are ignorant of what you are actually voting for, or you were so cowered by the Catholic Church that you felt you had to vote for it. The latter doesn’t make sense since you are not running for election in your own right. And the former assumes you are stupid.
So, Senator Kaufman, try again.