PITTSBURGH — Two national Catholic groups and some clergy in northwestern Pennsylvania are criticizing billboards that claim anti-abortion Congresswoman Kathy Dahlkemper's vote for federal health care legislation supported federal funding of abortion.

Similar billboards also paid for by the Susan B. Anthony List are at the center of litigation involving U.S. Rep. Steve Driehaus, an Ohio Democrat also opposed to abortion who got the Ohio Elections Commission to find there was probable cause that the billboards' claim was false. The ruling stopped the group from posting the ads.

Chris Korzen, executive director of Catholics United, said Wednesday the billboards targeting the two congressional candidates are dishonest attempts to smear some anti-abortion lawmakers. He said Dahlkemper, a Democrat, and others didn't violate their principles by voting for the health care legislation.

"We believe her vote was actually a very pro-life vote for the health care bill," he said.

On a conference call, Korzen said that "every independent analysis of the health care bill confirms it didn't expand" abortion funding.

Anti-abortion groups say that's not true and that even the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has determined abortion funding restrictions "would not appear to apply" to high-risk pools that states must set up under the new law to cover people with pre-existing conditions.

"Our billboards say Dahlkemper voted for taxpayer funding of abortion and that is absolutely correct," said Emily Buchanan, executive director for the Susan B. Anthony List.

She said Dahlkemper and other socially conservative Democrats pushed for strict language by Rep. Bart Stupak, a Michigan anti-abortion Democrat, explicitly barring federal funding of abortions in the House health care bill.

But the Senate bill passed into law didn't include those safeguards that anti-abortion groups supported, Buchanan said.

Korzen had representatives from Pax Christi USA, a Catholic social justice organization, and a Benedictine nun criticize the ads on Wednesday's conference call.

Sister Marlene Bertke of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie said the bill includes $250 million for women's health care and other counseling that should help reduce the number of abortions. "When they say that this bill is funding to help abortion it's absolutely wrong," Bertke said.

More conservative Catholic groups, like Catholic Advocate, and anti-abortion groups like the National Right to Life Committee and Americans United for Life agree with the Susan B. Anthony List, however, and have criticized Dahlkemper. The freshman lawmaker's northwestern Pennsylvania district is relatively conservative, except for Erie County, a Democrat stronghold, and she's facing a stiff challenge from Republican Mike Kelly, a Butler automobile dealer.

Dahlkemper's campaign did not immediately return calls for comment. Her attorney, Philip Friedman wrote to four Erie radio stations earlier asking them to pull ads by Americans United for Life which said her health care vote supported "the largest expansion of taxpayer-funded abortions ever."

Three of the stations didn't immediately return calls Wednesday. At the fourth, station manager Jim Riley of Citadel Broadcasting's WXKC-FM, said the station never pulled the ads.