WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy’s recent dispute with Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin may have made headlines around the world, but neither man is likely to play a major role in settling the big public policy issue at the root of their feud.

It is Rhode Island’s other Catholic congressman, Democrat James R. Langevin, who is in the eye of the abortion storm — lobbied by both sides on how abortion will be handled in the new medical system that President Obama and the Democratic-majority Congress are striving to create.

Like Mr. Obama himself, Langevin has given both camps reason to hope that he will side with them when push comes to shove. Indeed, abortion-rights backer Kennedy has praised Langevin for giving political “cover” to anti-abortion Democrats who seek to soften their stance. Bishop Tobin, an abortion foe, has pointed to what his diocesan newspaper called Langevin’s “courageous stand for life” on a key vote earlier this month. .

Langevin is one of a few dozen anti-abortion Democrats in the House who — depending on how the debate plays out in the next few weeks — could hold the power to demand a tough provision against taxpayer subsidies of abortion in the health-care overhaul that Mr. Obama wants to sign into law. Or he could help those who charge that the anti-subsidy language actually compromises the right to abortion — which has been the law of the land since 1973.

Langevin has sought a middle ground since last summer, when signals began to appear that abortion — always an emotional issue but only rarely the subject of close, highly consequential votes in Congress — might actually become an obstacle to the top item on Mr. Obama’s legislative agenda.

“I’m deeply concerned that the abortion issue will derail health-care reform,” Langevin said late in July.

On the sensitive ethical dilemmas surrounding such issues as abortion and human stem cell research, Langevin holds a political high ground that nobody else in Congress can claim.

Because he was crippled by a near-fatal handgun accident as a teenaged police cadet, Langevin has often said that his opposition to abortion is inspired by a hard-won sense that human life is precious. Because he knows firsthand the hope that stem cell research raises in people with severed spinal cords and other grave injuries and illnesses, Langevin has said he is compelled to support all forms of stem cell research. That includes research on fetal stem cells — opposed by his Church as a taking of human life. In the arena of campaign politics, Langevin’s personal history has been a powerful defense against attacks on these volatile issues.

Since the mid-1970s, abortion foes have maintained provisions in law that banned federal abortion subsidies to Medicaid recipients and, later, members of the armed services and some others. Abortion rights supporters never liked that “Hyde amendment” language, as it was called, but an uneasy acceptance of its political force has prevailed for many years.

A doctrine of no taxpayer subsidies for abortion is simple enough in principle and has worked in practice with sharply-defined programs such as Medicaid, the federal-state insurance plan for poor families. But extending the ban is vastly complicated by the prospect a sweeping overhaul that would cover tens of millions of uninsured, using a complex blend of public and private insurance plans and federal subsidies. Abortion opponents predicted that the new system would promote a major expansion of abortion services, subsidized at least in part by the taxpayer.

As the House health care bill took shape this fall, Langevin expressed support for a compromise that sought to segregate public money from private premium revenues within the newly created medical plans. Subsidized plans could cover abortion — but pay for it only with money from the private premiums. Langevin said he believed the compromise would prevent taxpayer financing of abortion, effectively extending the status quo under the longstanding language named for the late Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois.

Other opponents of abortion, led by Rep. Bart Stupak, D- Mich., replied that the compromise language amounted to an accounting gimmick that would result in expanded abortion subsidies. In the days before the House vote, Langevin expressed hope for a new compromise to create a “firewall” between the private premiums that could pay for abortion and the public money that could not. Because of Langevin’s stature, Kennedy said before the House vote that Langevin could “absolutely” play a role in saving the health care overhaul bill by attracting other anti-abortion Democrats to the compromise language.

But Stupak and his allies held firm on their threat to let the health care bill die if it did not contain their tougher provision on abortion coverage. House leadership granted them an up-or-down vote on that amendment Nov. 7.

Langevin then joined 63 other Democrats who voted in support of the Stupak language, which passed 240-194. That permitted the vote to proceed on the overall health-care bill, which passed on a narrow vote of 220 to 215. (Kennedy voted against the Stupak language and for final passage.)

Bishop Tobin lobbied Langevin to back Stupak. “Leading up to the House vote, we had some good conversations with Congressman Langevin and he supported the Stupak amendment,” said the bishop. “We’ve commended him in our diocesan newspaper.”

The Stupak victory surprised and outraged many abortion rights defenders, who assert that his provision goes far beyond the Hyde anti-subsidy language and would diminish even private insurance coverage of abortion .

Now the spotlight is on the Senate, where abortion opponents have an uphill climb in winning language as strong as Stupak’s House provision. If they cannot, the battle will be joined again, first in the House-Senate talks that would meld the two divergent health-care overhauls, then in the final votes in both houses.

Stupak has said that he and his anti-abortion allies have the votes to insist on abortion language like what he won in the House bill. Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee said Langevin is among the anti-abortion Democrats whose votes would decide such a showdown.

Tait Sye of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said abortion rights supporters hope for final language akin to the compromise provisions that Langevin endorsed before he voted for the tougher language last month. “Lots of people don’t realize how far the Stupak language went,” he said, so they will be asked to reconsider.

The question for Langevin, as a prominent opponent of abortion, is whether he will work with other abortion foes for strong anti-subsidy language when the final House-Senate compromise is being crafted.

Langevin declined to be interviewed about the issue last week, but his spokeswoman, Joy Fox, said Wednesday that he “still doesn’t want to let one issue” — abortion — derail the health-care bill.

jmulligan@belo-dc.com