In a last ditched effort to whip the necessary votes to pass the House of Representative's health-care reform bill last night, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed Rep. Bart Stupack's amendment, which would go further than any piece of legislation since the Hyde amendment to take away the choice of American woman to decide for themselves what to do with their bodies, to go up for a vote. After days of deliberation and whipping votes of her caucus, the Speaker came up short on votes because anti-choice Democrats, under pressure from Catholic Bishops, made it clear that they would vote "no" on overall health-care bill if the Stupak amendment was not put up for a vote.

Pro-choice Democrats reports The New York Times left the Speaker's office furious when it became clear that the amendment would get the vote on the floor, which made it almost a certainty that it would pass.

Pro-choice Democrats made their way to the floor to voice their opposition to amendment before the vote took place. Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said on the floor, "Abortion is a matter of conscience on both sides of the debate. This amendment takes away that same freedom of conscience from America's women. It prohibits them from access to an abortion even if they pay for it with their own money. It invades women's personal decisions." But perhaps the most damming criticism of the amendment came California Congresswoman Rep. Barbara Lee who gave a rousing speech as to why the amendment should be voted against.

Ultimately though their plea to guarantee a woman's right to choose whilst maintaining the provisions that would bar any federal funds from directly paying for abortion procedures were not fruitful. The amendment passed 240-194.

Republicans supported the measure, but Minority Leader, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), made it clear that while him and his caucus would vote for the amendment they would vote against the final vote on the health-care bill (which they did, with one Republican, Rep. Joseph Cao, voting with the Democrats). Thus the Republican strategy was simply to vote for the amendment to make choice effectively impossible for poor American women while they continued to play politics by opposing the final vote knowing that it would pass without their support.

As a result anti-choice Democrats facilitated setting back women's rights by decades and ultimately failed to covert any support from their ideological allies on the other side, with exception of Rep. Joseph Cao, when and where it really mattered.

For pro-choice progressives there is still a chance that the amendment might be stripped form the final bill during conference; however, depending on how much anti-choice Democrats are able to put on the conferees the amendment might endure the conference committee.

The extent of the Stupak amendment is far reaching and goes well beyond what was necessary to ensure that the Hyde amendment remained the law of the law. Blogger for FireDog Lake Jon Walker explains how the amendment's effect would be carried out in the exchanges:

If the insurance companies offering plans on the exchange are not allowed to turn down any costumers, it means no basic insurance plan on the exchange could cover abortion. There would be no way to prevent that at least one of the plan's costumer would be be using affordability tax credits to help purchase the plan. So the effect is no plan sold on the exchange could offer abortion coverage as part of its basic package.

Anti-choice proponents are no-doubt celebrating that the amendment passed and made its way into the final House bill. However, in their jubilation it is worth pointing out that the loser from this battle was the American woman, who once again has had her autonomy chipped away by people who have made their intention to impose their beliefs on other one step closer to becoming law.

While abortion remains a controversial issue for many Americans, one thing that we have learned over the years is that making it (effectively) illegal has never stopped women seeking an abortion from having one. Instead what these legislative measures have done is merely make the procedure unsafe, being conducted in unsafe environments, which potentially put the life of the mother and the unborn in danger.

In the meantime, while the Senate works on its version of the bill, pro-choice proponents can call representatives to make a final stanch for women's reproductive rights when the bill comes back around to the House. The is no reason for there to be health-care reform if it comes at the expense of women's rights.