Democrats clashed with Republicans at a House hearing Tuesday over the injection of the abortion issue into discussion of a long-pending bill to counter postpartum depression.

The dust-up at the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing may foreshadow GOP attempts to modify legislation (HR 20) that would identify causes and cures for the condition.

Subcommittee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr., D-N.J., pledged at the hearing “to work with [bill sponsor Bobby L.] Rush to move this legislation to the floor as soon as possible.” Several Republicans at the hearing also praised the bill’s provisions addressing postpartum depression, but indicated that it should be modified to address “post-abortion depression.”

Rush has been working for passage of such legislation since 2001 and now appears to have the support he needs to move a bill. He has said the legislation is needed because each year, 400,000 women suffer from mood changes after they give birth, ranging from “the baby blues,” to incapacitating postpartum depression to postpartum psychosis, which he said strikes one in 1,000 new mothers.

Postpartum depression “has consequences not only for the woman, but for the child and the family as a whole,” said the panel’s former chairman and current ranking member, Republican Nathan Deal of Georgia, in his opening statement. Deal added that more should be known about all aspects of depression resulting from the termination of a pregnancy.

Deal’s reference to abortion triggered a rebuke from Colorado Democrat Diana DeGette, who called the reference “offensive.” She said she’d be glad to debate the abortion rights issue on its own merits, but not at Tuesday’s hearing.

DeGette said established medical professional groups have not recognized post-abortion depression as a clinical condition. American women have waited far too long for action on postpartum depression to have the hearing on the issue diverted into “political theatre, she added.

DeGette’s use of the term “offensive” brought a rare flash of anger from the by then grim-faced Deal, who asked DeGette whether she would yield. “I will not,” DeGette declared.

Deal shot back, “you mentioned my name,” and defended his commitment to action on the postpartum issue by pointing out that he is a cosponsor of the measure.

Deal later defended his reference to abortion by noting witness testimony concerning instances of depression following the abortion procedure. He said he would not attempt to amend the bill to include research on post-abortion depression, however.

Deal said his Republican colleagues might do so, but denied that the issue would delay House action on the bill. A Pallone aide said no date has been scheduled for a mark up of the bill.

The bill would expand research by the National Institutes of Health into the causes of postpartum depression, and push for research on ways to diagnose and treat the condition. And it would authorize grant programs to improve screening for the condition and to provide support for families affected by it.

Mood disorders in the period following delivery affect many women, testified Catherine Roca, chief of women’s programs at the National Institute of Mental Health. Roca called “maternal blues,” which she distinguished from postpartum depression, “a transient depressed mood that can last a few days to a week.” Roca said in written testimony that it affects about 50 percent of new mothers.

Postpartum depression, which lasts two weeks or more, interferes with the ability to perform day-to-day tasks and “can be incapacitating,” she said. Even more serious but “rare,” she said, is postpartum psychosis, which “is associated with agitation, hallucinations and bizarre ideas, occasionally leading to violent behavior.”