Monday, Nov. 9, 2009 -- Despite an enormous pushback of e-mails, calls, faxes and a rally of 10,000 people on Capitol Hill on Thursday, the House voted 220 to 215 late Saturday night to pass the massive ObamaCare health takeover plan. The 1,990-page bill, titled the "Affordable Health Care for America Act" (HR 3962), now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to face far more opposition.

The narrow victory for the massive health takeover plan came after passage of the Stupak-Pitts amendment, which bars federal subsidies to health insurance plans that fund abortions. According to Accuracy in Media, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops threw their weight behind the measure, once the abortion amendment was approved. The New York Times reported that the bishops had told President Obama months ago that they would support the health care takeover as long as abortion was not covered.

Here’s how Operation Rescue President Troy Newman described what happened:

A plan to stop the bill by having the amendment fail with pro-life GOP members voting "present" was foiled when National Right to Life told them that they were going to score that vote as "pro-abortion" on their next electoral scorecard. The amendment, according to The Wall Street Journal, "gave cover to 40-some Democrats to support the larger bill."

The Journal, which described the bill as "a breathtaking display of illiberal ambition, intended to make the middle class more dependent on government through the umbilical cord of ‘universal health care,’" editorialized that the bill was ultimately anti-life, since "the government will have no choice but to ration medical care, starting with the aged and grievously ill." Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mi), who had said before the vote that even if his amendment failed, he could still vote for ObamaCare, "played the right-to-lifers like a Stradivarius," the Journal concluded.

However, RedState.com’s Eric Erickson, in a post entitled "Divided We Fall, warned Monday against finger-pointing among conservatives, saying, "Most of the Republican leaders on the Hill encouraged a "yes" vote for the Stupak Amendment because (A) its passage would send a strong message that there is a pro-life majority in the House of Representatives and (B) its passage would not affect the final outcome. Regardless of how you view Stupak, we know now there is a pro-life majority in even this Democratic House of Representatives, and Stupak very clearly will not affect the final outcome." Erickson, like others, predicts that the House-passed bill is "dead on arrival" in the Senate.

Abortion advocates Planned Parenthood and NARAL sharply rejected the Stupak Amendment and vowed to fight it in the Senate. Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richardson condemned House passage of the pro-life amendment and called it an "unacceptable addition to the health care reform bill." With its passage, she said in a statement, Planned Parenthood "has no choice but to oppose HR 3962."

Saturday’s narrow House vote for PelosiCare came four days after voters displayed their displeasure with Washington. The Nov. 3 Republican victories in New Jersey, and Virginia and even passage of the "people’s veto" of homosexual "marriage" in liberal Maine, have sent a message that opposition to the liberal political agenda is rising. So the House Democratic leadership twisted arms for a quick vote on the health bill.

Robert H. Knight is Senior Writer and Washington, D.C., Correspondent at Coral Ridge Ministries. He is the author of Fighting For America’s Soul (Coral Ridge Ministries, 2009).