Peacemaker Obama separates abortion from health reform

An unfazed President Barack Obama laid down the law on the role of abortion in health-care reform, immediately after S.C. Rep. Joe Wilson's factually wrong and possibly censurable "lie" outburst.

There will be no federal funding of abortions or abolition of conscience laws.

From the transcript of Obama's presentation:

THE PRESIDENT: ... There are also those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: You lie! (Boos.)
THE PRESIDENT: It's not true. And one more misunderstanding I want to clear up -- under our plan, no federal dollars will be used to fund abortions, and federal conscience laws will remain in place.
(Applause.)

Convoluted struggle over the issue will continue, as pro-life blogger Jill Stanek demonstrated today with her argument that Obama is merely attempting to create a myth. That view isn't taking hold. Two big Catholic health care organizations were persuaded by Obama's speech, as was the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Judging from the post-speech CNN poll and the Democracy Corps during-speech dial testing, so were Americans in general.