First you agitate for a complete ban, knowing that the Dems will later attempt to buy your vote with some kind of compromise. Any restriction is a good thing from the anti-funding point of view because it will both limit funding for abortion immediately and it will all but guarantee that both sides will mount legal challenges which will take time to move through the courts and likely involve temporary injunctions that will undermine abortion funding in the short term.

One these challenges get to the SCOTUS, one of three things will happen: the courts will decide that the underlying law is constitutional (you’ve won some funding restriction), the courts will decide that funding of abortions is unconstitutional (you’ve won a stronger restriction), or the courts will decide that a funding restriction is unconstitutional which necessitates the underlying bill be changed. At this point you have more chances for playing down the clock through filibuster or other procedural moves as well as more chances to attempt to demand concessions in exchange for votes. More importantly, it will be harder to alter this bill than to pass it because of the section requiring a super majority for any amendments or repeals.

Why play for time like that? Right now the Dems look like they’re in trouble in the midterms elections and no one knows what will happen between now and 2012. The strategy the right is using now is to find ways to cripple this bill and advance their own agenda through concessions until they’re in a more politically advantageous position. Moreover, the longer they keep health care reform from becoming settled the weaker the Dems look, making mere obstructionism a good political gamble. A shitty bill demotivates the Dem’s base, makes them look ineffectual to swing voters, and allows local Senators and Reps to say that they were in favor of the bill but had to hold out because of whatever issue the local rubes objected to.

First, you would need to have a health insurance plan which provided for emergent and preventative care for a variety of reasons.

Second, you would need to have the carve-out of an exception for abortion. It doesn’t matter from a legal perspective if they exclude payments for “voluntary” abortion for purposes of BC (that, as we know, does not need to be funded.) Instead, it would need to specifically exclude abortion even when medically necessary. Perhaps it would even exclude abortion when it was an emergency.

The question then becomes whether that could arguably fail the rational basis test. That test grants huge discretion to the government but it is not an absolute bar.

I have a feeling that denying funds for emergency abortion but permitting them for everything else would fail the rational basis test. It certainly would have failed in the old court. I am not current enough in that area of the law to

There are also tactical issues. If you really think that the no-abortion is unconstitutional, then what? It may be the case that it is better to gamble on the courts:

You need to ask yourselves whether you think you can win at the USSC. That’s never guaranteed but smarter people than i can guess the odds.

then, you also need to ask what you think you can win at the USSC. Can you get a complete overturn of the abortion ban? An overturn only for emergencies? How is the language written? This is where the benefit comes in; it is possible that the court would have to grant GREATER coverage than is currently being proposed by Congress or that might be the result of a Congressional compromise.

Then, you need to predict the Congressional response if you win at the court; will they leave the decision alone (good for you, if you win) or rewrite the statute to match the smaller limits of the decision?

In other words:

that’s a serious and dangerous gamble though.

Well the reps noted in my first comment as well as the pro-choice caucus are also raising constitutional issues. either their pinning their hopes on overturning Harris (its a living doc in their view after all) or perhaps the language in the compromise doesn’t take into consideration abortion where the heath of the mother is at stake…in which case they could have a serious equal protection argument, as the harris decision is restricted to “non-therapeutic” abortions.

which could mean if govt provides for healthcare it must also provide for abortions

Jill noted that the Supreme Court has already ruled on this argument and dismissed it (in Harris v McRae). There really is nothing reasonable that can be pulled out of what Chambliss said.

one can’t imagine he believes this argument, but he could be being machiavellian here. after all, i assume thats what Reps. Diana DeGette (D-CO) and Louise Slaughter (D-NY) mean when they doubt the bills constitutionality. remember, conservatives are trying to get progressives to do the work they don’t have the power alone to do. politics, strange bedfellows.