Peterson joins GOP to pass House anti-abortion bill, Bachmann misses vote

A bill that would complicate the method by which insurers covered abortion and strengthen “conscience” clauses exempting medical providers from having to offer the service passed the House Thursday.

The bill was approved 251-170, with Rep. Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) joining a group of Democrats to support the bill. All other members of the Minnesota delegation split according to party, with the exception of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) who missed the vote.

The bill, named the “Protect Life Act,” would require insurers to set up programs that don’t provide abortion services in order to participate in the health insurance exchanges that are the backbone of the new health care law.

Perhaps its most controversial feature would also strengthen conscience exemptions for medical facilities that disagree with abortion, such as religious institutions. Opponents say this clause could lead to pregnant women being denied life-saving medical care.

On the House floor, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) told her story of having a medically-necessary abortion.

“I was pregnant. I was miscarrying. I was bleeding. If I had to go from one hospital to the next, trying to find one emergency room that would take me in, who knows if I would even be here today?” Speier said. “And what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are attempting to do is misogynist. It is absolutely misogynist. The time has come for us to stop taking up this issue over and over again this year and do something that the American people really care about.”

The legislation is unlikely to be introduced in the U.S. Senate.

And Pres. Barack Obama released a statement earlier this week vowing to veto the bill if it passes both houses of Congress. “The legislation intrudes on women’s reproductive freedom and access to health care and unnecessarily restricts the private insurance choices that women and their families have today. Longstanding Federal policy prohibits Federal funds from being used for abortions, except in cases of rape or incest, or when the life of the woman would be endangered.”