As expected, amendments from Senator Orren Hatch to further restrict abortion were defeated Wednesday.
Most interesting to me is the rise of a new argument: the Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus noted that the status quo is to ban federal funding for abortion — but that the ban has to be renewed each year. The Hatch amendment would have made the ban permanent and therefore, argued Baucus, did not reflect the status quo.
UDPATE: Cathy Grossman at USA Today probes the implications of the committee’s decision to fund abstinence-only education programs.