Abortion-rights advocates are calling in the cavalry to help fight off an anti-abortion provision House Democratic leaders swallowed in order to win passage of their health care reform bill.

Laurie Rubiner, vice president of policy for the Planned ParenthoodFederation, said the tight restriction on public funding for abortions“has completely galvanized the reproductive health community and thewomen’s community.”

On Tuesday, Planned Parenthood summoned 80 progressive groups to plot strategy for keeping the anti-abortion amendment — named for sponsors Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.) — out of a final health care bill.

If that doesn’t work, Plan B is to rely on progressives in the House tovote against a bill containing the language. Forty-one House Democratsthreatened to do just that in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi(D-Calif.), according to a report by Washington Post blogger GregSargent.

“They passed health care reform for half the nation and partial healthcare reform for the rest of us,” said Terry O’Neill, president of theNational Organization for Women. “We will oppose any health care billthat includes anything like Stupak/Pitts.”

But the first battlefield is in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid(D-Nev.) has yet to unveil his chamber’s version of the health carebill. It’s still not entirely clear whether Reid, who has a mixedrecord on abortion and a tough reelection bid next year, will includethe Stupak/Pitts provision or if abortion foes will have to try toamend it in. Either way, there is likely to be a vote on the issue onthe Senate floor, forcing socially conservative Democrats to picksides.

They are already starting to get pressure from a coalition ofabortion-rights advocates and their allies in the progressive movement.

The Planned Parenthood meeting included representatives of influential liberal organizationslike the Service Employees International Union, MoveOn.org, theAmerican Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign and theCenter for American Progress, according to a list provided to POLITICO.

NARAL Pro-Choice America plans to “patch through” calls from activistsin 17 states to their senators’ offices next week to lobby against theStupak/Pitts anti-abortion amendment in the Senate version of a healthcare overhaul. The group’s online petition to Reid collected 30,000signatures in less than 24 hours, and an e-mail campaign from thegroup’s grass roots to lawmakers is due to start soon, according to anofficial.

NOW chapter leaders are making appointments with individual senators.In the meantime, 53 activists showed up to picket Senate offices in theDirksen Building earlier this week, according to NOW President TerryO’Neill.

With so much on the line, the abortion-rights activists recognize thatthey have to mobilize quickly and forcefully to counteract Pelosi’sdecision to give the anti-abortion lawmakers what they wanted inexchange for their accession to passing the bill.

Although abortion rights groups worked hard to give Democrats themajorities in the House and the Senate — not to mention the White Houseitself — they’re reluctant to call Pelosi’s decision a betrayal.

“That’s water under the bridge,” said Nancy Keenan, head of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

Now, they’re focused on ensuring that the Senate doesn’t adopt the same language,which would make it very difficult to keep the provision out of aHouse-Senate conference agreement because Senate rules strongly favorretaining language adopted by both chambers.

The amendment would prohibit federal funds from being used for thepurchase of plans that cover abortion in a new health care exchange.Abortion rights activists say that it is more restrictive than theexisting Hyde amendment, which prohibits direct federal funding ofabortions, and that it would strip away rights women currently have.Abortion critics counter that leaving out the amendment would forcetaxpayers to subsidize abortion.

They say that under Stupak/Pitts, insurers would be free to offerseparate plans: One for individuals who get subsidies that does notcover abortion services and one for those who do not receive federalhelp that does cover abortion.

“The amendment explicitly allows a given insurance company to sellpolicies that cover abortion, and also to participate in the exchangeand sell policies that do not cover elective abortion to federallysubsidized customers,” Douglas Johnson of the National Right to LifeCommittee wrote to POLITICO in an e-mail.

But abortion rights groups say the ban would inevitably stop women whobuy insurance through the exchange without the help of federalsubsidies from accessing plans that cover abortion because it wouldprohibit plans that cover abortion from pooling individuals who getfederal subsidies with those who do not.

Kim Gandy, a Harvard University Institute of Politics fellow who is theimmediate past president of NOW, said she thinks her side will prevail.

“My sense is [Pelosi] made the only decision she could,” Gandy said. “It’s not a sacrifice yet, and I don’t think it will be.”

Still, the abortion-rights groups have a fight on their hands, andDemocratic leaders — faced with enough threatened defections to killthe bill in the House if they choose either side — have many strategic decisions left ahead on the abortion issue if they hope to enact a health care reform bill in this Congress.

Senators, including Reid, are in for an earful.

“It was a wake-up call across the country,” Keenan said.

Leaders of abortion-rights groups met with high-ranking White House officials to discuss the health care bill on Wednesday.

“As part of our ongoing outreach surrounding health insurance reform,staff met with today with representatives of the women’s rightscommunity,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said. “Staff will alsobe meeting in coming days with leaders from communities of faith andother groups involved in the effort.”

ABC’s Jake Tapper, who first reported on their meeting with chief ofstaff Rahm Emanuel and other senior advisers to the president, wrotethat the abortion-rights advocates had a “frank exchange” withadministration officials, according to a source who participated.