Foxnews

Major Garrett

President Obama signed the Senate health care bill into law Tuesday. He did not sign the executive order on abortion negotiated with Michigan Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak in an 11th-hour arrangement that may well have saved the entire health care reform effort.

A White House official told Fox, Obama will not sign the Executive Order Tuesday and has set no specific date to do so. Stupak predicted Obama would sign the order later this week. The White House said only that Obama would sign the order "soon."

 In two celebratory speeches Tuesday - one at the bill's signing, the other at the Interior Department with health care advocates - Obama said nothing about the abortion issue or the executive order.

Stupak, meanwhile, is under fire for accepting the order as his price for supporting the health care overhaul legislation, which passed on a vote of 219-212.

Stupak released a statement today defending the as-yet-unsigned executive order, placing it on a list of other significant orders that included Abraham Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and Harry Truman's 1948 order desegregating the U.S. armed forces.

"Throughout history, Executive Orders have been an important means of implementing public policy," Stupak said in a statement. "The most famous Executive Order was the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Lincoln in 1863."

The Stupak-negotiated abortion executive order has drawn withering criticism from pro-life groups. Stupak called the attacks "disingenuous."

“This Executive Order has the full force and effect of law and makes very clear that current law of no public funding for abortion applies to the new health care reform legislation," Stupak's statement said.

The White House contends the executive order merely re-states existing law under the Hyde amendment that prohibits direct federal funding of abortion through Medicaid.

"He believes that the bill maintains the status quo and he thinks the executive order reiterates that strong belief," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said of Obama's take on the underlying bill and the executive order. "What the bill does and what the executive order does is underscore that the status quo is preserved."

It's not clear the support of Stupak and a handful of other pro-life Democrats guaranteed the bill's passage.

"I'm not sure that that's altogether knowable," Gibbs said.

What is clear is the deal gave House Democrats sufficient pad to protect dozens of members from the expected Republican election-year taunt that any one lawmaker who voted yes was the decisive vote.

Republicans used that strategy successfully in 1994 to defeat many House Democrats after then-President Bill Clinton's budget, a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, passed in the House by one vote.

Here is the list of previous executive orders Stupak cited as important as the one accompanying today's freshly signed health care law.

• In 2007 President Bush signed Executive Order 13435 restricting embryonic stem cell research.

• In 1863 President Lincoln issued Executive Order 95, more commonly known as The Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in states rebelling against the United States.

• With a series of executive orders in 1962 and 1963 President Kennedy imposed trade and travel restrictions with Cuba. President Carter let some restrictions lapse but they were reinstated by President Reagan. It wasn’t until 1992 that Congress codified the embargo against Cuba, but the restrictions had already been in place most of the prior 30 years by Executive Order.

• In 1948 President Truman issued Executive Order 9981 to desegregate the Armed Forces.