Abortion Opponents Watching Nelson on Health Care

Published December 19, 2009

| AP

OMAHA, Neb. - Waiting at home for Nebraska's Ben Nelson is the following message: "Merry Christmas and we thank you for your stance on pro-life issues so far, and we hope you continue to stand for what's morally correct."

Matthew Grgurich left the message Friday, the same day he headed to a protest at the Democratic senator's office near the state capital to make his point a second time. For years, Grgurich and his family of registered independents have voted for Nelson almost solely because of his strong stance against abortion.

It's a vote Grgurich and others in Nebraska say Nelson, who was the final Democrat in the Senate holding out against the landmark overhaul of the nation's health care system, would lose if he backed down from his demand that the reform effort include tough restrictions on abortion.

Nelson announced Saturday would support the bill after Democratic leaders agreed to his list of demands.

"If you don't respect life, you don't respect any other laws," Grgurich said.

A former insurance executive considered the most conservative Democrat in the Senate, the 69-year-old Nelson -- one of 60 Democratic votes needed to enact the legislation over unanimous Republican opposition -- has spoken privately at least three times in the past 10 days with President Barack Obama. But whatever pressure he's facing in Washington is sure to pale with the heat he'd face at home for making an abortion-related misstep during the health care debate.

"He'd be toast," said Mary Jo Bousek, who joined Grgurich at the protest. "I have friends who are Republicans who voted for him because they're very pro-life."

Since his election to the Senate in 2000, Nelson has worked with Republicans on thorny issues such as taxes and judicial nominations. On his office wall is a framed yellow napkin, a memento of his negotiations with Vice President Dick Cheney over the Bush administration's 2001 tax cuts.

Cheney wrote three numbers on the napkin, and the circled middle number led to the compromise Nelson helped forge when Congress later approved a $1.325 trillion tax cut.

But abortion restrictions leave little room for compromise. The failure earlier this week of Nelson's amendment to tighten funding restrictions on abortion wasn't a good sign that his Senate colleagues understand how stridently he feels about the issue, said Frank Barrett, an Omaha attorney who worked with Nelson as a state insurance regulator in the 1960s and later as an executive at Central National Insurance Group.

"Let's say (Majority Leader Harry) Reid says to him, 'You know you're not going to get anything for Nebraska if you don't come along' -- that would be the worst thing in the world to do," Barrett said. "That's not going to sway him at all. As a matter of fact, it may stiffen him a little bit. I just think he thinks things out."

Since his first election to statewide office in 1990 as governor, Nelson has consistently opposed abortion. He was running for the Senate in 2000 when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated a 1997 Nebraska state ban -- signed into law by Nelson -- on the procedure that abortion opponents call partial-birth abortion.

During his last bid for re-election in 2006, Nelson received Nebraska Right to Life's sole endorsement over his Republican challenger. So strong is Nelson's anti-abortion stance that the group's director refused Friday to speculate what might happen to his political career if he were to compromise on health reform effort.

"I think he's drawn a line in the sand," said Nebraska Right to Life director Julie Schmit-Albin. "The guy is standing by himself right now. It's incredibly courageous ... and we want to thank him for that."

Grgurich and the others outside Nelson's office said Friday that Nebraska voters aren't likely to tolerate any equivocation on abortion.

"Pro-life support is important in this state for pro-life Dems who run for statewide office ... and there aren't too many Dems of opposing stripe who have run successfully lately," Schmit-Albin said.

URL

http://www.foxnews.comhttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/12/19/abortion-opponents-watching-nelson-health-care