Lawrence Auster is surprised that Bart Stupak seems to want Obamacare to pass as long as it contains his language barring taxpayer funding of abortion. He shouldn’t be. Stupak is a pro-life liberal. He has no major economic or constitutionalist objection to the Democratic approach to health care reform. He simply opposes abortion and wishes to keep the practice from being publicly funded.

Although Stupak himself as been a stalwart so far, that does make it risky to put too much faith in the “Stupak 12.” Already another pro-life liberal, Democratic Congressman Dale Kildee, told reporters last night that he’s satisfied with the Senate’s abortion language and said of the bill, “I’ll probably vote for it.”Kildee would be harder to convince if his objections to the health care bill were not confined to abortion.

But when you look at the much larger universe of Blue Dog Democrats who should object to the bill’s cost, its intrusion in private markets, its unconstitutionality, its tax and spending increases, its fiscal irresponsibility, and its public funding of abortion, they have been next to useless. The pro-life Democrats — including pro-life liberals who otherwise have no serious objection to the bill (and in some cases would probably prefer a public option) have so far been a bigger obstacle than the Blue Dogs. We’ll see.

UPDATE: Kildee’s office has told Catholic Vote Action that the congressman was misquoted and has not decided to vote for the Senate abortion language.