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Pro-choice Democrats first tried to argue that their health care legislation could not subsidize elective abortions because of the Hyde Amendment, despite all the above facts and even though the bill created new funding streams not covered by the amendment. When that argument failed to satisfy pro-lifers, Congresswoman Lois Capps (D-CA) proposed a "segregation of funds" model: the federal government could subsidize insurance policies that cover abortion, but the abortions themselves would have to be paid for out of premium dollars rather than tax dollars.

But the money is fungible and the regulations unworkable. What's more, the segregation of funds model was not adequate to prevent abortions from being covered by the government-run public option or performed at federally funded community health centers. So pro-lifers continued to insist on something as straightforward as the Hyde Amendment: Stupak-Pitts.

Some pro-lifers, that is. The Senate adopted a health care bill of its own, to the right of the House version on the public option (which it killed) but to its left on abortion. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, whose spokesman says he is "strongly pro-life," specifically tossed out Stupak-Pitts and replaced it with language closer to the Capps Amendment. Casey teamed with pro-life senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Ben Nelson (D-NE) to reinstate the Stupak guidelines. When their amendment was rejected 55 to 45, however, the pro-life Democrats promptly caved and voted to pass the final bill without pro-life language.

Stupak pledged to hold firm, but almost immediately he faced resistance from unexpected quarters: senior pro-life Democrats. "The saddest part of the whole Stupak saga," a Republican Hill staffer told TAS, "is that it was the ‘old bulls' of the pro-life Democrats who brought him down." Congressman Mike Doyle (D-PA) was the first when he signed on as a supporter of the Capps Amendment last July, but by March bigger names among the most senior pro-life Democrats would join him.

On March 17, Congressman Dale Kildee (D-MI) sent a constituent letter saying that as a pro-lifer he was satisfied with the Senate's abortion language and that he intended to vote for the bill. Congressman Jim Oberstar (D-MN), a past co-chair of the pro-life caucus, was spotted by Republican staffers actively lobbying Stupak Democrats to switch their votes. "I am convinced," one of these staffers said in an e-mail also sent to other journalists, "[Oberstar] transferred the Pro-life Caucus chairmanship to Stupak so that he could then undermine him on tough votes like this and eventually tear apart the caucus."

With the "old bulls" defecting, Stupak's coalition was limited. The more conservative pro-life Democrats from competitive districts objected to other parts of the health care bill and their votes were never in play.The remaining holdouts were Democrats like Stupak: pro-lifers who were liberal on most other issues, basically in sympathy with the health care bill, and reliant on union support. According to the Hill newspaper's whip count, there were more than enough of them to defeat the bill if the leadership didn't relent on Stupak-Pitts. But they were not the most stable group for conservatives to count on to stop the health care juggernaut. "Pro-life Democrats wanted health care to pass and were looking for ways to support the bill," says Kristen Day. "Pro-life Republicans wanted to kill health care."

What happened next varies slightly depending on who you ask. "I believe the Obama administration lied to Bart Stupak," Congressman Trent Franks (R-AZ) told TAS. "They told him they already had the votes and Stupak believed them." A Hill staffer agrees, saying, "Stupak saw it falling apart and thought he needed to get whatever he could while he still had some leverage. We just don't think he got anything." What Stupak got was an executive order that could be rescinded at any time, overturned by the courts, or ignored because it does not have the full force of the statute behind it.

Yet Stupak may not have wanted to be directly responsible for defeating the health care bill. He told the Hill that the "best thing" for him might be to "vote no on this bill and then it passes anyways." Stupak was ready for his leadership to back down or to have the legislation pass without his vote, but not to be one of the deciding votes against it. "It's caused a lot of internal conflict," he admitted.

"I don't think anyone who knows Bart Stupak doubts he is pro-life," says a Republican staffer. "He just caved." Other observers concur. "I don't think Congressman Stupak intended for this to happen, though I don't make any excuses for his decision [to flip] which was unconscionable," says Franks. But the wrath Stupak incurred among pro-lifers will not dissipate anytime soon.

Neither will the ramifications for the bi-partisan nature of the pro-life movement going forward. A Republican congressman who did not wish to be identified because of the sensitivity of the negotiations told TAS that his fellow GOP pro-lifers want Stupak to step down from the pro-life caucus co-chairmanship. "All anybody ever sees is the name of the chairman and the co-chairman," the congressman says. "It can't be [New Jersey Republican] Chris Smith and Bart Stupak anymore."

The Family Research Council's political action committee and the Susan B. Anthony List, which stripped Stupak of a planned "Defender of Life" award, pledge to target his allies who voted for the health care bill in the fall elections. Pro-life Democrats counter that they are being made scapegoats for the bill's passage. Indiana Right to Life "didn't endorse Brad Ellsworth when he had a 100 percent pro-life voting record last time," says Day. "The NRLC doesn't score votes for the Hyde Amendment as a pro-life vote because that will hurt the perfect scores of Republicans who vote against the HHS appropriations."

Some pro-lifers worry they will lose the Stupak Democrats' votes on the legislative battles that lie ahead -- areas where they had been reliable in the past. "I know some people say there's no such thing as a pro-life Democrat, that their first vote is for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker," says a Republican staffer. "I understand where they're coming from, but I disagree with that." Day argues "we need to elect a pro-life Senate. Depleting the House's pro-life majority by making it easier to elect pro-choice Democrats may be good for Republicans, but it is not good for the pro-life community."

"We know this much," says Franks. "The pro-life Democrats who withstood all this are bullet-proof." There is a lot of Republican praise for Congressman Dan Lipinski (D-IL), the most liberal Democrat to vote against the bill on pro-life grounds. Congressmen Lincoln Davis (D-TN) and Ike Skelton (D-MO), both no votes, also tend to be liberal on issues other than abortion. "My immediate impulse is that we need to endorse people based on their position, both stated and demonstrated, on the issue and not based on party," Franks continues. "But pro-life Democrats should try to change their party."

It is the pro-life Democrats' lack of enthusiasm for this task that makes their Republican allies distrust them. By arguing that the health care reform vote was pro-life, that Obama has given them "a place at the table," and that public subsidies for abortion providers will help reduce incidence of abortion, many of them seem more interested in being good Democrats than good pro-lifers. When they finally had real leverage over their pro-choice leadership, the Stupak pro-lifers snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. For pro-lifers, being taken for granted by the Republicans and marginalized by the Democrats is no choice at all.