Senator's antiabortion stand leaves him with moral dilemma on health-care reform bill

Because of his antiabortion position, Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) might not join other Democrats in supporting health-care reform legislation. (Melina Mara/the Washington Post)
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Deep down, Nelson is a numbers man, a former insurance company chief executive and one-time state insurance commissioner. He loves to split the difference in negotiations, epitomized by a framed cocktail napkin hanging in his Senate office. Taken from a 2001 discussion with then-Vice President Richard B. Cheney, the napkin has three numbers on it. The top number is 1.6, signifying Cheney's hope for $1.6 trillion in tax cuts, the bottom number is 1.25, signifying $1.25 trillion, and the center number, 1.425, is circled -- Cheney's last hope being that Nelson could get Democrats to agree to that large of a tax cut.

Cheney lost, and the final figure was much closer to Nelson's bottom line.

In past compromise efforts, Nelson often represented the middle ground in a large, bipartisan group.

Lately, no Republicans have been involved in the health-care talks, and Nelson regularly finds himself as the most conservative senator at the table -- certainly the only one with a Cheney memento hanging in his office.

"The process has become so polarized," he told reporters Friday, one of the dozens of interviews he has granted just off the Senate floor in recent days.

If it's possible, Nelson is both a workhorse and a show horse in the Senate. He works hard to find critical compromises but never hesitates to get his message out to the assembled media, ending up literally and figuratively the man in the middle. After a key vote Wednesday, more than two dozen reporters surrounded Nelson, with most unable to hear his retorts to their questions. They shoved their digital recorders over and under colleagues' shoulders and armpits, hoping to capture a snippet of what Nelson had to say. One reporter asked whether, in this scrum, Nelson had already addressed the abortion issue.

"I did," he replied. Then he launched into a several-minute repetition of his position on the issue.

Even if all other issues on the health bill are resolved, abortion remains the hardest for Nelson. Regardless of the wording, he demands one result: no federal abortion funds.

"If I don't get it, I can't support cloture [ending the filibuster] on the next round," he said.