In seeking to fend off a major revolt by supporters of abortion rights, Democratic leaders in the Senate have infuriated abortion opponents with their new version of health care legislation. The National Right to Life Committee called the Senate language “completely unacceptable.”

The Senate bill drops some of the restrictive abortion language that was part of the House health care bill. But it contains an ambiguous provision that could bar any government-run insurance plan, or public option, from providing abortion coverage. The Senate bill says that no federal funding can be used to pay for abortion coverage, which is language that abortion-rights supporters have accepted for decades.

But it also says that any public option could not provide insurance for abortions unless the Secretary of Health and Human Services determined that a payment plan would not use federal money.

This provision to allow the health secretary to determine whether a payment plan passed muster seems open to interpretation. An administration that supported abortion rights could include plans that might be excluded by an administration that opposed abortion rights, and vice versa.

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