Another Roman Catholic bishop — Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix — has revoked the right of a hospital to call itself Catholic over a dispute as to whether a life-saving procedure that results in the end of a pregnancy can ever be acceptable.

Thankfully, the professionals of St. Joseph’s Hospital stood up to the bishop. But this won’t be the last time a hospital is threatened by the hierarchy of the Catholic church, and that should worry everyone, regardless of your beliefs.

When we pointed out that this is in fact what the bill does, Ezra dismissed it as “helping activists kill the bill” rather than “actually informing anyone about what is in the bill.” According to Ezra, “the restriction here is not on the right to choose, but on whether primary insurance covers abortion.” Therefore, since the goal of the bill is not restricting a woman’s right to choose, the fact that it does so anyway is just a coincidence and therefore not a valid reason to object to the bill’s passage.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has made a deal with Rep. Bart Stupak in order to secure his vote and that of other anti-choice Democrats for the health care bill, which is scheduled to be voted on this Sunday. According to a member of Congress who was briefed on the matter, Pelosi has agreed to let Stupak have a vote on his amendment either before or after the House votes to pass the Senate bill. It instructs the Senate to substitute the language in his amendment for the Senate language on abortion.

FDL has obtained a copy of the concurrent resolution. . . .

Nothing looks confirmed at the moment. But the moment House leaders reach agreement with elements of the Stupak bloc is the moment I stop ding whip counts. Because then, health care passes without too much trouble.

And what’s the deal? A future, standalone vote on the Stupak amendment, in the House and the Senate.

You could just see this one coming today: faced with a difficult vote count without a bloc of anti-choice Democrats on board, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer expressed an openness to a standalone vote, essentially a third bill, on Bart Stupak’s abortion amendment, as a condition of his support for health care reform.

Today on CBS’s “Washington Unplugged,” Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Anthony Weiner (D-NY) threw some very cold water on the current plan of having the House pass the Senate bill unchanged, followed by the passing of some “fixes” through reconciliation. Stupak said, “I don’t think they have ten votes for the Senate bill.”

Despite claiming the current plan to pass health care reform with the House acting first on the Senate bill would not get enough votes in the House, Stupak sounded rather upbeat about the possibility of passing health care reform with what sounds like a reconciliation-only strategy. If this becomes the preferred strategy for passing something called health care reform, it would represent a significant change in direction.

DeLauro’s office has been peddling weasel words since this whole thing began. No reason to think the flow will stop now.

DeLauro’s office numbers: New Haven 203-562-3718, Middletown 860-344-1159, Naugatuck 203-729-0204, Derby 203-735-5005

Please join these powerful women this weekend to help defeat the Stupak amendment.

Slinkerwink of FDL Action and DailyKos is hosting a phone bank in Austin this afternoon to stand up for choice in the health care bill. She’s a fellow Austinite, so I paid her a visit. Says Slink: I’m running this phonebanking event because I want to make sure that the Stupak language isn’t in the [...]

Join me at 3pm in Rockville and have fun phone banking together at Sue Cohen’s house.

Sign up to attend here.

You can find a phone banking event near you, and get more information at One Voice for Choice.