As has been widely reported, the health care legislation that barely squeaked through the House by a 5-vote margin last Saturday night happened only after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed for an amendment that would sharply curtail the availability of abortions in health care coverage.

That amendment, introduced by Michigan Representative Bart Stupak, has proven to be extremely controversial, and on Monday, 41 House Democrats wrote a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledging to vote against the bill in its final form if it contains that anti-abortion rights amendment.

According to Dave Haynes, liaison officer with the Hillsborough Young Democrats, a staffer confirmed to him on Monday that Tampa area Representative Kathy Castor was one of the 41 who signed that letter.

As published on the blog the Plumline earlier this week, the letter says:

As Members of Congress we believe that women should have access to a full range of reproductive health care. Health care reform must not be misused as an opportunity to restrict women’s access to reproductive health services.

The Stupak-Pitts amendment to H.R. 3962, The Affordable Healthcare for America Act, represents an unprecedented and unacceptable restriction on women’s ability to access the full range of reproductive health services to which they are lawfully entitled. We will not vote for a conference report that contains language that restricts women’s right to choose any further than current law.

CL attempted to call Representative Castor's office today for confirmation that she signed the letter.  But because of Veterans Day, her office is closed today.

In the Senate, there is considerable work being done right now to try to have a 'compromise' on the Stupak Amendment.

According to the New York Times

On Tuesday, several women in the Senate, including Barbara A. Mikulski of Maryland and Dianne Feinstein of California, both Democrats, met to come up with a strategy for resisting major new restrictions on abortion.

In a statement, Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, expressed opposition to restrictions like those adopted by the House. Ms. McCaskill said Congress should not “change current law, which is no public money for abortions.” And she said the House bill “goes too far limiting private funds, too.”

Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California said she believed that a compromise could be reached but that the restrictions included in the House bill were unacceptable.

“This amendment is unfair and discriminatory toward women,” Ms. Boxer said. “It singles them out as a group and would deny women access to a legal medical procedure by dictating what a woman can do with her own private funds. We’ve had a compromise in place for decades that has been fair. Anything that disrupts that compromise is a huge step back for women.”

Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the health committee, also said the House had gone too far. “I fear that the House-passed language,” Mr. Harkin said, “will effectively prevent women from receiving abortion coverage under the new health exchanges, even if they are using their own money to buy insurance.”

This article appears in Nov 11-17, 2009.