Congressman Bart Stupak has been the man who’s been standing up to Democrat leadership and asking that his amendment to block abortion funding be voted up and down on the floor.

Pelosi will not allow Stupak’s amendment to be voted on for fear that abortion funding would be prohibited.

So Stupak said that if Pelosi doesn’t allow his amendment to be voted on he, along with 40 other pro-life Democrats, won’t allow the healthcare legislation to be voted on. And that’s where we’ve been for weeks. A standoff. And so far nobody has blinked.

But…

Stupak had to leave Washington D.C. this week due to the death of his mother in law. And you know the Democrat motto of never letting a good crisis go to waste, I guess that includes family crises as well because Pelosi has swooped in just when the 40 pro-life Democrats were feeling a little wobbly because it was announced that “pro-life” Congressman Brad Ellsworth is seeking to cut a deal with Pelosi.

The compromise is a complete sham however. And to add insult to injury, it’s not even a clever sham. It simply adds a middle man to government funding of abortion and says government will not directly fund abortion. No, the government will fund the guy who funds the abortion.

That’s like someone hiring a hit man and claiming he didn’t kill anyone. (Actually that metaphor works a little too well)

In an email to LifeNews.com, Congressman Chris Smith called the compromise Smith “back-room deals and horse-trading” and “nothing more than legislative gimmicks that will do nothing to prohibit federal support and the expansion of abortion coverage in America.”

“The new language does nothing to change the fact that the public option will be authorized to pay for abortion,” the head of the bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus said. “If they truly want to keep abortion out of the health care bill, they must accept the Stupak-Pitts amendment that says clearly and plainly that there can be no funding for abortion and no government subsidies for plans that cover abortion.”

Smith says the new language merely uses accounting ploys to hide the federal funding of abortions.

“The new language makes clear that abortion will be included in the public option. Under the new arrangement, instead of an HHS employee issuing blood money checks for elective abortions, HHS will pay a contractor to issue checks for abortion on demand,” he explained.

“It is a distinction without a difference,” Smith said. “The public should not be fooled nor should any pro-life Democrat.”

The only way this works is if the Democrats think they can fool enough pro-lifers into believing this is an actual compromise. Don’t be fooled.