It takes a certain kind of moxie for an advocacy organization to basically go on the record as praising a group of machistas for taking away the rights from one group to allegedly favor another one. That's exactly what Janet Murguía and her platitude spewing machine just published on their website. Am particularly flabbergasted by the two following paragraphs:

National Council of La Raza: LANDMARK HOUSE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL IS GOOD FOR LATINOS, SENATE NEEDS TO COMPLETE THE TASK AND BUILD ON THE HOUSE EFFORT, SAYS NCLR

The leadership of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) deserves special recognition for successfully fending off the efforts of some lawmakers to add onerous, costly, and unnecessary immigrant restrictions to health care that would have harmed U.S. citizen children. In addition, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the CHC, as well as Rep. Henry Waxman, deserve considerable praise for their efforts to secure and protect meaningful access to health care for Latino families, children, and all families of color.

Despite serious gains, however, the House bill is still too tough on legal immigrants and their access to public health care. For example, the bill would continue the mandatory five-year bar for legal immigrants to access public health services. To promote an equitable system for all, restrictions on legal immigrants’ access to federal aid such as Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) must be removed. Furthermore, roadblocks to insurance must be eliminated by removing excessive verification requirements that raise costs, increase barriers to health care, and have been proven to harm many U.S. citizens.

SHAME ON YOU JANET MURGUÍA! SHAME ON YOU FOR KISSING UP TO DESPICABLE WOMEN-HATING HISPANICS! SHAME ON YOU FOR SELLING OUT THE INTEREST OF ALL WOMEN, INCLUDING LATINAS, IN THE ALLEGED NAME OF IMMIGRANTS!

And yet, it doesn't have to be this way.

Look at the world of difference offered by the Latina Institute with their post, Women and Immigrants --- left on the sidelines of health care reform:

What happened???

    •    In an effort to pass health care reform, Congress included an amendment that singled out and banned most abortions from all public and private health plans in the insurance exchange.  Women who think they may need an abortion in the future would be required to buy an additional insurance “abortion rider” with their own personal funds for coverage.

    •    Under the House bill, undocumented immigrants can buy into the public health insurance exchange with their own money. But, they are prevented from receiving any subsidies, affordability credits, or receive federal Medicaid.

    •    The 5-year ban on legal residents accessing public health benefits, including Medicaid, also remained intact.

Essentially politicians are saying that under current health care reform, women would have to plan for an unplanned pregnancy. 

OUTRAGEOUS!

Anti-choice activists know that the real goal of this amendment is to limit women’s access to abortion coverage in both public and private health insurance plans since many private plans may choose to deny coverage for abortions.  They even brazenly called the final House bill "a nail in the eventual coffin of Roe v. Wade."  (Christian Newswire)
 
And anti-immigrant forces are working day and night to strip out health care access for undocumented immigrants in the final bill that goes before the President for his signature.  In fact, the current Senate bill up for debate prohibits undocumented immigrants from using their own money to buy health insurance in the exchange, leaving millions without health care!

Explain to me why NCLR couldn't take the same road in their press release. Why did one of the most high-profile Latinas in the United States sell out to comply with her daily quote of immigration advocacy talking points?

As Ezra Klein so succinctly pointed out, the Stupak amendment is not just a "right-to-lifers" wet dream, it is a shot straight out of the still unacknowledged war against the US working and lower-income classes:

Stupak's amendment stated that the public option cannot provide abortion coverage, and that no insurer participating on the exchange can provide abortion coverage to anyone receiving subsidies. But as Rep. Jim Cooper points out in the interview below, the biggest federal subsidy for private insurance coverage is untouched by Stupak's amendment. It's the $250 billion the government spends each year making employer-sponsored health-care insurance tax-free.

That money, however, subsidizes the insurance of 157 million Americans, many of them quite affluent. Imagine if Stupak had attempted to expand his amendment to their coverage. It would, after all, have been the same principle: Federal policy should not subsidize insurance that offers abortion coverage. But it would have failed in an instant. That group is too large, and too affluent, and too politically powerful for Congress to dare to touch their access to reproductive services. But the poorer women who will be using subsidies on the exchange proved a much easier target. In substance, this amendment was as much about class as it was about choice.

It is a fact of the heinous access to reproductive health education and services in this country that 67% of non-white women in this country have abortions. 22% of those women are Latinas. Why make it even more difficult for our sisters to get the kind of health care services they need to survive?

How can the infamous pro-Stupak men of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus be considered "courageous" for throwing lower-income and poorer Latinas under the bus? This amendment actually extends the Hyde Amendment in Medicaid legislation and goes further since the ban would extend to any federally funded health insurance, not just Medicaid. This would mean that many more than the 2 Million Latinas who rely on Medicaid would be affected by Stupak. And it would mean many more Latinas will rely on the "do-it-yourself" abortions that kill at least 5,000 of us yearly.

Is that what Janet Murguia and the National Council of La Raza really want for Latinas, needless to say all women in the United States? What would it have taken for NCLR to stand right next to Planned Parenthood or the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and denounce this Health Care Reform bill as bad for all women and all immigrants? Why do we still have to debate the importance of not just intersectionality in politics but in coalition building as well?