My blog of 11/8/09 praised the steadfastness of our current president and the attitude this fosters among an activated citizenry. Congress, as has regularly been threatened since he took office, could be another matter.

At the moment, the Democratic Congress, so familiar as a rubber stamp for wars of choice and surrender of civil liberties in the recent Bush years, is, in the immortal words of John Glenn (though he used it in reference to Senator Lautenberg voting against Bill Clinton’s tax-hike on the wealthy), “leaning straight up” — the vote this past Saturday to pass Obama’s healthcare reform was an admirable, and these days rare, victory for constituents over corporations. But as has come closer to the surface of media attention since anything has made it far enough to scrutinize, the bill comes booby-trapped with an effective ban on abortion coverage for anyone using the “exchange” that lets citizens shop around and get the most affordable healthcare.

This erosion of an established right was passed because of Democratic votes. Undeniably, its an established right that’s been embattled since the moment it was won, but the Democrats are supposed to be the party that does the battling to keep it secure. In general, anyway — no few Republicans who remember the classic conservatism of personal rights and responsibilities prefer Big Brother out of our bedrooms too (at least when it comes to procreation if not same-sex rights to the unions and parenthood that straights are un-affirming in droves, but that’s another blog). Nonetheless, the Democrats’ typical instinct to preserve their elected position ahead of their people’s rights, health and safety may be re-emerging in the abortion vote.

In the referenda on gay marriage we’ve seen a reversal of the basic logic of freedom — that, even in a democracy, rights are the one thing that’s not subject to a vote. Rights can only be expanded; that’s the true trajectory of nature as the Founders conceived (if not thoroughly practiced) it. Specific rights are not to be vetoed by those who don’t happen to need them (talk about the “tyranny of the majority” that some GOP lawmakers are, cynically and with short memory, invoking in the close votes for Obama’s programs). Rights are also not to be traded off — though, as the first woman Speaker of the House has reminded us in bargaining a basic women’s healthcare right for a “general” healthcare bill, rights *can* be traded away.

This is not to say that the pro-life movement shouldn’t be admired, or at least emulated. Supreme Court rulings are second in weight only to the Constitution itself, and the fact that a movement has worked tirelessly against Roe v. Wade for its entire lifetime, and with material progress all along the way, shows commitment to a seemingly lost cause that all Americans could stand to take a lesson from. Capitulation earns you nothing when an example of tenaciousness like this shows such results — but a major reason Pelosi had to bow to the anti-abortion lobby was that it is now one-and-the-same with a broad swath of her party.

There has been a sweep of pro-life Democrats brought to office in recent years, and now Pelosi — and unfortunately, American women in particular and citizens overall — are seeing the consequences of conceding the opposition’s values in the name of “electability.” It’s nothing new to note that the revised and updated Democratic Party is often not very democratic at all. With luck and effort, the final tally of the Senate’s and the conference committee’s version of the healthcare bill will not include the abortion ban in its equation. And, given that the party is led by a president who achieved phenomenal success and enjoys still-high popularity having run as the least compromised Democrat in living memory, hopefully the party will calculate that, too.