The Paper It's Written On

I wonder whether it has occured to Bart Stupak and his group of pro-life democrats that in the hours after the announcement of the deal they've brokered with the White House, there is a deafening silence from the left, and especially from the abortionist left (if one need distinguish).  Granted, it has only been a few hours.  NARAL's website makes no mention.  The online stories carried by the MSM make no mention.  Nobody is mentioning the reaction of the abortionists.

I suspect that's because there isn't any.

They know what Bart Stupak and his (I believe sincere) colleagues have allowed themselves not to know.  The abortionists know that the vaunted executive order to clarify how a health-care plan that expressly covers abortion does not in fact do so, if it is ever actually issued, will not be worth the paper it is written on.  With the television cameras off, and they will be off, the President will never get around to it; and the calls from Stupak and his group that he do so will not be heard outside of Congress, or perhaps outside of congressmen's offices, perhaps.  And if the order is actually, in some imaginary world, issued, it can as easily be rescinded.

If any of the above were false - if an executive order carried more weight than legislation, rather than less - the abortionists wouldn't have fought so tenaciously to keep it out of the law, and they wouldn't be so taciturn about the whole thing suddenly.  But wait, I do hear noises, after all: the sound of snickering in sleaves.
I am trying hard not to judge Stupak and his group.  The amount of pressure that they have been receiving has been enormous.  I think it safe to say that the spiritual combat is not yet over.