Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on ABC today that the “conversations will continue” aimed at trying to find a compromise with Rep. Bart Stupak and his cadre on abortion funding in the health care bill. Here’s the full transcript between Sebelius and former Bush campaign aide Matthew Dowd:

DOWD: One very important, I think, controversial thing, is that a few votes — Representative Bart Stupak has talked about the need that the Senate bill has to include abortion language that was in the House bill, to prevent federal funding of abortion and an expansion on services. He says he carries with him 11 votes. Can you pass a bill or can the president pass a bill and the Congress pass a bill without those votes?

SEBELIUS: Well, the goal is the same. The president has said from the outset, we don’t want to change the status quo on abortion funding. Neither the Senate or the House bill has any federal funding for abortion, none. Yes, abortion services are provided, and people will pay out of their own pockets, in both the Senate and the House, but they do it in slightly different ways–

DOWD: Is Representative Stupak wrong about this?

SEBELIUS: Well, I think Representative Stupak has worked as a member of Energy & Commerce. He wants universal health care. He wants health reform for the people whom he represents. I think we’ll continue to work on getting this done. He shares the goal with the president, that no federal funding will be provided for abortion.

DOWD: Do you think a deal can be done that does not include the language he wants, but something in (inaudible), is that one of the things that can be considered?

SEBELIUS: I think the Senate bill, actually, has a different set of words than the amendment that Representative Stupak had in the House, but confirmed by legal scholars and various people that it does exactly the same thing. There are no federal funds for abortions. But I think that if that does not satisfy the congressman, the conversations will continue. But certainly, his goal and the president’s goal are the same — do not change the status quo on abortion.

I don’t know that this would make pro-choice Americans feel better, that either they get a restrictive bill including the Stupak amendment or… one that does functionally the same thing. Either way, reproductive choice services will be restricted, and women will need to pay for abortions out of pocket. In many cases that won’t matter, and a lot of women already purchase abortions that way. But plenty of women will see the option of an abortion priced out of reality for them. And because the exchanges are set to expand in the bills, over time the entire insurance market will drop abortion coverage, even if you get your health care from an employer.

And yet, despite this largely semantic difference, Stupak and his group will not back down. One of the Stupak 12, Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA), confirmed that today.

While Mrs. Dahlkemper campaigned as a supporter of health care reform and made an impassioned plea on the House floor in July, citing access as the problem that demanded action from Washington, she’s made it clear since the House acted in November that the key issue for her is abortion.

Her office confirmed that recently when her spokeswoman said that Mrs. Dahlkemper could not support the Senate’s language “period.”

So, as Sebelius said, “the conversations will continue,” because vote-counters can’t see a way past this decisive issue. And it’s bound up as much in power politics as anything else. Stupak, and by extension the Catholic church, simply wants to show their dominance over a signature issue, both for this and future fights. It’s a political game being played with women’s lives.

As to whether this will result in a third bill or an effort to overrule a point of order in changing the language through reconciliation? Stay tuned.