Indiana Right to Life’s political action committee will no longer support Democratic candidates for office after the defection of putatively pro-life Hoosier Democrats Brad Ellsworth, Joe Donnelly, and Baron Hill on the abortion funding language in the health care bill. Ellsworth is running for U.S. Senate this fall.

“Our leadership anguished over this decision,” notes IRTL-PAC chairman Mike Fichter. “Had Democrats like Brad Ellsworth held firm in opposing federal funding for abortion in the health care bill, we likely would have rewarded such action with a bipartisan endorsement policy. Ellsworth’s collapse under pressure from the White House and Speaker Pelosi, as well as the collapse of his colleagues Joe Donnelly and Baron Hill, leaves us with no alternative. Leadership matters, and the reality is that Democratic leaders are advancing an abortion agenda at an alarming rate that will only be checked by a Republican majority.”

Fichter said the bipartisan endorsement policy could be returned if pro-life Democrats challenge their party’s leadership and platform language on abortion. This is a significant move for a major pro-life group. The pro-life movement has benefited from being bipartisan, but in recent years many pro-life Democrats have been going the way of Harry Reid. As one blogger put it “IRL has apparently decided that they have had just about enough of Democrats in Congress talking one way in the district and voting the other way in Washington.”