Senior House Democrat leadership aides say that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and majority leader Steny Hoyer were not concerned about the potential backlash from left-wing women groups, such as the National Organization for Women and pro-abortionists like Planned Parenthood, for their allowing the so-called Stupak amendment, which would have limited the use of federal health care funding for abortion.

“Fine. Let [the groups] be mad, where are they going to go? The Republicans?” said one aide. “They can be mad all they want, but it’s not like they have anywhere else to go. You hate to say it, but we take them for granted because they’ve allowed themselves to be taken for granted. The Speaker was very confident that at the end of the day, those groups are going to be standing with us when the next big issue comes along. We’ll make it up to them and they’ll get over this pretty quick.”