Is the Left willing to lose over abortion coverage?

I don't think so. Obama's commitment to maximizing abortions is real, but it's not his highest priority.

Axelrod suggests that federal abortion coverage is a hill to die on:

Obama adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that the president hasn't wavered in his opposition to the Stupak Amendment, a measure authored by conservative Democrats to ban abortion coverage which last week passed the House with solid Republican support.

"The president has said repeatedly, and he said in his speech to Congress, that he doesn't believe that this bill should change the status quo as it relates to the issue of abortion," Axelrod told CNN. "He's going to work with the Senate and the House to try to ensure that at the end of the day the status quo is not changed."

Mike Potemra marvels at Obama's fixation on expanding abortion access:

They could barely get this thing through the House, even when the pro-life Democrats had the Stupak Amendment to sweeten the deal. Now they appear to be willing to lose the health-care bill — and it’s not even in defense of their underlying principle of abortion rights. They are willing to risk losing the bill simply because the bill does not expand access to abortion as much as they would like it to. [emphasis added]

That’s a devotion that borders on religious fervor. There are many things that have been called make-or-break for the Obama presidency: winning Afghanistan, preventing another 9/11, turning the economy around. Here’s another thing that could break his presidency: torpedoing his No. 1 agenda item, in obeisance to a single-issue special-interest lobby that is losing support from the American people.

RTR of Mr. Potemra's post for context. (And by the way, when it comes to legislation this administration is not yet convinced that "support from the American people" needs to be considered.)

Perhaps one of the chief goals of "healthcare reform" is to get around the Hyde Amendment and, er, stimulate the abortion industry. A bill that covers abortions would be an enormous coup for the recession-wounded abortion industry which would likely see a surge in demand for their "services."

And lest anyone forget, we don't call Barack Obama the abortion president for nothing. From the very beginning of his presidency he has aggressively promoted the legalized killing of the unborn. He could hardly wait to get started. Abortion is a very high value on the Left.

Then again, Obama could just be posturing and ready to jettison this "belief" as soon as he perceives it as a threat to a bill's viability. For though he is an avid abortion enthusiast, even to the point of denying life-saving medical treatment to "temporarily alive" infants for fear that it may cast a pall over a woman's right to choose, his ego demands the passage of something, anything, labeled "Health Care Reform."

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