By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — The director of an anti-abortion group in Arkansas said today the group was disappointed by a recent vote by Sen. Blanche Lincoln and will work to defeat her re-election bid next year.

“We will do whatever we can to elect a pro-life candidate for her seat,” Rose Mimms, executive director of Arkansas Right to Life, said at a news conference at the state Capitol.

The group responded to the defeat in the Senate of a proposed amendment to health care legislation that would have prohibited federal subsidies for health insurance coverage from being used on private plans that cover abortion except in cases of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s health.

The amendment was tabled in a 54-45 vote. Lincoln voted for the motion to table the amendment. Arkansas’ other senator, fellow Democrat Mark Pryor, voted against the motion.

“We’re very disappointed, but it was not unexpected. She (Lincoln) has never been with us on life issues,” Mimms said.

Lincoln and Pryor both have said the Senate health care bill as it stands now would preserve the existing ban on federal funding for abortions.

Contacted today for comment, a spokeswoman for Lincoln said she had nothing to add to Lincoln’s comments on Tuesday explaining her vote.

At that time Lincoln said she opposed the amendment proposed by Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, because it “would impose significant new restrictions by banning private health insurance companies that wish to sell their policies through health insurance exchanges from covering abortion, as they do today, even when that coverage could only be financed through private premium dollars.”

The health care bill passed by the House contains language similar to the Nelson-Hatch amendment.