Fox’s Chris Wallace is slated to moderate the third and last presidential debate in Las Vegas, NV, on October 19, and has chosen immigration as one of the topics the candidates will be discussing. Throughout his tenure Wallace has been inconsistent in the way he’s framed the issue, at times pushing culturally incompetent slurs and using the language of immigration reform opponents, and at others stepping up to criticize Trump for “demoniz[ing]” Mexican immigrants. Which Wallace will show up at the debate stage on Wednesday?

Even though immigration is the “cornerstone” of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign, moderators have yet to bring it up at a general election debate. Wallace has announced he will be the first moderator to do so. While Wallace’s conflicts of interest as a moderator are a problem in their own right -- for two decades Wallace worked for Trump ally and former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes, and he defended Ailes amid the sexual harassment allegations that caused Ailes to be ousted from his position running Fox News -- having him frame immigration for discussion among the candidates will also bring its own set of problems. Those issues stem from Wallace’s own inconsistencies on the topic and his promised passivity in the face of a candidate whose immigration positions have been described as “impractical,” “clueless,” and “inhumane.”

When it comes to the immigration debate, Wallace belongs to the camp of those who still use culturally insensitive slurs like “illegals” to refer to undocumented immigrants. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) has long condemned that term for its dehumanizing nature, and both the term “illegals” and “illegal immigrant” violate current Associated Press journalistic standards. Wallace has also previously embraced the language of those who oppose immigration reform, asking whether creating a path to citizenship would be “amnesty.”

While moderating a Republican presidential debate in August 2015, Wallace neutrally introduced an immigration question about Kate’s Law without disclosing the active role Fox News had played in proposing and pushing for the anti-immigrant federal legislation. The proposed law, which sought to establish mandatory minimum sentences for undocumented immigrants who re-enter the country after deportation, failed to pass.

On the other hand, Wallace was critical of Trump’s vitriolic rhetoric against Mexican immigrants during a June 2015 appearance on KFTK’s Allman in the Morning, taking a more compassionate stance by saying it’s not “right” to “demonize a group of people”:

CHRIS WALLACE: I vastly prefer what Jeb Bush -- and I’m not in the tank to Jeb Bush on this, but I vastly prefer what he's saying, which is, which I think is the truth, which is that people come to this country -- and I'm not saying that they should. I mean, a great country has to be able to defend its borders, but people don't come to the United States because they're criminals. I think most people come to the United States because they think they'll be able to provide for their families and have better lives, and to demonize a group of people is -- I don't think it's right.

Many Latinos in the media have been clamoring for a substantive discussion about immigration during the presidential debates, but given Wallace’s announcement that he won’t be pushing back on candidates while moderating, the stage on Wednesday night might just be another platform for Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

In response to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s baseless claims that there is “large-scale voter fraud happening on and before election day,” Univision pointed out the intimidating and deterring effect the claims could have on minority voters.

In an October 12 article, Univision reported that Donald Trump is galvanizing his supporters to sign up as “observers” at polling locations on election day in order to fight back against what he calls “large-scale voter fraud.” The claims contradict extensive evidence that demonstrates in-person voter fraud is virtually non-existent. Univision spoke to Latino electorate experts who pointed out that the presence of “observers” at polling locations “intimidates” and suppresses minority voters. Univision highlighted concerns from Hispanic groups about “tactics like these” because they “generate a hostile environment,” especially for first-time voters and pointed out that “Trump’s words graze a dangerous line between legal and illegal.”

While this line of attack was initially propagated by right-wing media -- which continue to assist Trump in pushing these false claims -- Univision joins others in condemning these statements as “bogus” and “irresponsible.” Translated from the Univision article:

Donald Trump has started to spread a new message to his followers: vote and then go to “other communities” to make sure “that no one robs the election from our hands.” Hispanic leaders fear that the mogul’s politics of fear might damage voter turnout.

[...]

Even in the campaign’s website, people can sign up to be observers of the elections.

From long experience, Hispanic leaders know that this type of tactics intimidate minority voters.

“We have seen similar strategies before, where they assign people to observe, who basically scare Hispanics and tell them off. Even when they don’t say anything, their presence and the way they dress intimidates,” explained Arturo Vargas, executive director of NALEO.

[...]

Vargas insisted that tactics like this “generate a hostile environment, especially for people who are voting for the first time and that’s why it’s important for those participating to know their rights.”

The director of NALEO also insisted that it’s necessary for the Department of Justic to place the largest possible amount of observers in polling places.

[...]

Trump’s words graze a dangerous line between legal and illegal.

In 1982 a decree was issued based on multiple complaints about the intimidation of minority voters between 1970 and 1980.

The decree specified that the Republican party should not carry out any security activity in voting locations where the ethnic and racial composition is a factor to decide to monitor these areas.

The order expires in 2017 and can be renewed by the Supreme Court.

From September 15 to October 15, while many in the United States celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month by honoring the culture of the largest minority population in the country and commending its contributions, Fox News continued to demonstrate its disconnect from Latinos and the issues that affect them most. The network’s coverage of Hispanic Heritage Month was limited to highlighting one high-level Hispanic person during three-minute segments every Saturday, while simultaneously ignoring numerous relevant stories concerning Latinos, denying the impact certain issues have on Hispanic people, mocking relevant members of the community, and providing a platform for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to smear them. Here are six examples:

Fox Was The Only Cable News Network To Ignore Trump Supporters’ Racist Attacks On A Hispanic Journalist

On September 12, senior political writer Henry Gomez of Cleveland.com wrote a piece outlining the influx of “racist, hateful messages” from Trump supporters attacking his Mexican heritage, messages that he says “parrot[ed] a lot of Donald Trump’s greatest hits.” CNN and MSNBC interviewed Gomez and asked about the ethnic slurs he received while covering Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Fox News was the only prominent cable news network not to cover the story.

The O’Reilly Factor Mocked Prominent Hispanic Journalist Jorge Ramos

On the October 4 edition of The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly dismissed Tim Kaine’s Spanish language skills by arbitrarily taking a jab at one of the “most influential” Hispanic people in the U.S., journalist Jorge Ramos, commenting, “You can be boring if you speak Spanish. Have you ever seen Jorge Ramos?” Attempting to rehabilitate his unwarranted insult on Ramos, O’Reilly later called his remarks “a good line and a cheap line” and said that “Jorge Ramos is not boring” but did not apologize.

Fox Gave Donald Trump A Platform To Further Attack Former Latina Miss Universe

After it was revealed that Donald Trump had attacked former Miss Universe Alicia Machado about her weight and Hispanic heritage, Fox & Friends provided him with a platform to further smear the pageant winner, and he claimed she was “the absolute worst” and “impossible” to work with because she “gained a massive amount of weight.” Trump’s smears were met with no pushback from the Fox hosts.

Fox’s Sean Hannity Advocated For Stop And Frisk, A Policy That Negatively Targets Blacks And Latinos

After the October 4 vice presidential debate, Fox host Sean Hannity and Fox regular Rudy Giuliani made the case for stop and frisk. But the policy has been shown to have disproportionately "targeted blacks and Latinos," according to CNN's Jason Carroll, who noted that the practice was deemed unconstitutional in New York City in 2013 and that officials "say the practice severely eroded relations between police and the communities they serve.” Fox figures routinely laud the use of stop and frisk, even though Hispanic media and mainstream outlets have discredited the practice as ineffective and an example of racial profiling.

Fox’s O’Reilly Misidentified CBS’ Elaine Quijano As “A Latina” And Speculated She Would “Go After Pence About Trump’s Statements And Miss Universe”

During The O’Reilly Factor’s pre-vice presidential debate analysis, Bill O’Reilly misidentified debate moderator Elaine Quijano as Latina and commented that because of her ethnicity “you’ve got to assume that she’s going to go after Pence about Trump’s statements, and Miss Universe, and all of these other things.” Quijano is in fact Asian-American. Meanwhile, Latinos in the media had been blasting the debate commission for its failure to include a Latino moderator.

Fox’s Eric Bolling Denied That Latinos Are Disproportionately Victims Of Police Brutality

On the September 23 edition of The Five, co-host Eric Bolling insisted that “the number of people killed [by police], whether white, black, or Hispanic, is proportional to the amount of violent crimes [they] commit.” This runs contrary to statistics and feeds into a deceiving right-wing media narrative that downplays police brutality against blacks and Latinos. In fact, many media outlets have been pointing out that police brutality against Latinos is often underreported, and Hispanics are increasingly more concerned about racial discrimination.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump broke his silence of over a year with Spanish-language media by talking in Florida to Telemundo51’s Marilys Llanos. However, Llanos failed to press Trump on issues that concern Spanish-language audiences, including allegations that he violated the U.S. embargo against Cuba and his record of disrespecting women, which includes allegations of sexual assault.

On October 12 Trump sat down for an exclusive interview while campaigning in Florida with a local Telemundo station. The clip was published on Telemundo51.com on October 13:

The friendly interview was conducted in English while Llanos dubbed his answers in a Spanish-language voiceover and included color commentary like, "The interview took place on board of the candidate’s plane, valued at $100 million.” Llanos asked Trump about his tweet promising to reverse President Obama’s executive order aimed at normalizing U.S. relations with Cuba, and he responded by stating that he knows many Cubans because “as you know, I own Doral,” a municipality in Miami-Dade County, FL, where Trump has real estate investments. In this line of questioning, Llanos failed to ask the candidate about a Newsweek report that a company controlled by Trump could have violated the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

Despite asking Trump how he planned to win the female vote, Llanos gave him a pass by letting him posit that the reason he would do well with women is because “more than 50 percent” of the people turning out to his Florida rallies were women. Llanos did not press the candidate on a 2005 video that surfaced recently in which Trump brags about being able to “do whatever” he wants to women because he’s “a star.” The most recent allegations against Trump, the accusations of two women who came forward to accuse him of sexual assault published by The New York Times, had not been revealed at the time of the interview.

Trump hadn’t done an interview with Spanish-language news shows since sitting down with Telemundo’s José Díaz-Balart in June 2015. After being confronted for his disparaging comments about Mexican immigrants, Trump had been actively ignoring repeated requests to sit with any of the networks, specifically Telemundo and Univision. In response to repeat requests for an interview from Univision's Jorge Ramos, Trump published the anchor’s personal information and mailed him a request for a campaign donation.

It's not just Spanish-language media Trump has ignored; amid a storm of bad press, the candidate has sought refuge with friendly media -- like the Fox News bubble -- and softball interviewers, avoiding networks where he might get hard-hitting questions. But his dismissal of Spanish-language media has been particularly extreme, and after being ignored for so long, their audiences deserve better than sycophantic interviews.

A panel of Latino media experts recently discussed Media Matters’ reports that Latinos are underrepresented in and marginalized from political discussions on cable news networks, and highlighted how the trend -- which applies even when the issues discussed affect them disproportionately -- has significant electoral consequences. As the panel explained, under-representation can fuel xenophobia and lend false credence to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s avoidance of Spanish-language media and the Republican Party’s decision to ignore the Latino vote.

During the October 3 panel hosted by Media Matters, Hispanic media expert Cristina López presented the findings from numerous studies that analyzed Latino representation and inclusion in news media and showed that siloing Latinos to the single issue of immigration has excluded them from a majority of discussions on other issues that also affect them significantly. López explained that such exclusion means “Latinos don’t get to participate in discussions even when the topics genuinely affect them -- when they are the protagonists of the stories, they are not invited to comment.” This is illustrated by a Media Matters analysis which found that only 11.5 percent of the guests brought on cable news networks to comment on Trump’s attacks on federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Hispanic heritage were Latino. Another study showed that Latinos were also marginalized during cable news conversations about the Orlando, FL, massacre at the Pulse gay nightclub, even though the majority of the victims were Hispanic. Media Matters has previously reported that Latinos are consistently underrepresented in the media and mostly confined to commenting on immigration when invited to appear on political talk shows.

Panelists explained that media under-representation has significant consequences. Veteran journalist Fernando Espuelas remarked that “media creates reality,” and therefore, when audiences don’t see Hispanics discussing political issues in the media, “there’s a point at which even non-prejudicial, non-racist [people] start to be unable to see Hispanics in that context.”

CNN’s Maria Cardona added that the consequence of a dearth of Latino voices in the media is that “it becomes so much easier [for] the kind of vitriol and hatred that Donald Trump is spewing to become normalized because the outrage is just not enough” when Latinos “don’t have the appropriate representation across the board, on all of the shows:”

The problem extends beyond Latino representation in English-language media. When Latinos are siloed from important political discussions on cable news networks, it can allow major party candidates -- like Donald Trump -- to virtually ignore Spanish language news networks and fuel a rift between the rapidly growing and increasingly important Latino electorate and the Republican Party. Voto Latino’s Maria Teresa Kumar explained that Trump’s absence is a big deal due to the key “role that Spanish-language media plays in the household” for Hispanics in the United States. Kumar further explained that Spanish-language media companies are “committed to helping [Latinos] navigate America,” by providing them with tools that better allow them to participate in American democracy. An example of this is Univision’s voter registration effort. And yet, despite the importance Spanish-language networks have in many Latino households, Donald Trump has repeatedly ignored their interview requests.

CBS’ Elaine Quijano will moderate the debate between the Republican and Democratic vice presidential nominees, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence and Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA).

Since no debates will feature a Latino moderator, Hispanic voters are relying on the journalists who were selected to challenge the candidates on issues that matter most to their communities. Pence has a problematic record on issues that are important to Latinos, including the minimum wage, gun violence prevention, climate change, immigration, and access to reproductive rights. Will debate moderator Elaine Quijano challenge him on these topics?

Minimum Wage

Pence Signed Law Capping Indiana Minimum Wage, Employee Benefits. In 2013 under Pence’s governorship, the Republican State House rejected a proposal that would have increased Indiana’s minimum wage to $8.25 per hour, at a time when national support for raising the wage to $9 was at 76 percent. According to The Times of Northwest Indiana, Pence had previously signed legislation “prohibit[ing] local governments from requiring businesses [to] pay a higher minimum wage, or offer any working condition or benefit, such as paid sick leave, if it's not mandated by state or federal law.” On May 6, 2015, Pence signed another bill ending a system in which workers on publicly funded construction projects earned a prevailing wage.

Hispanics Support Raising The Federal Minimum Wage And Would Benefit Greatly From The Change. According to Pew, 84 percent of Hispanics support increasing the federal minimum wage. If the federal minimum wage was raised, “nearly 6.8 million Latino workers would benefit” and the wages of Latinos would increase by $8.5 billion, according to a study by the Center for American Progress.

Gun Violence Prevention

The NRA Praised Pence For Adopting Its Radical Agenda. The NRA endorsed Pence’s run for governor in 2012, awarding him an “A” rating while noting in a statement, “Mike Pence has a proven record of defending the Second Amendment.” The statement praised Pence for several votes he cast while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, including to support a controversial immunity law that makes it difficult for victims of gun violence to sue gun dealers and manufacturers that arm dangerous people through negligent or otherwise wrongful conduct.

Latinos Favor Gun Safety Measures. Polls conducted by Pew Research Center demonstrate that, by a wide margin (71 percent to 25 percent), Latinos “prioritize gun control over gun rights.” The numbers are backed by findings from the organization Latino Decisions, which confirmed in a poll that “a solid majority of Latino voters support gun control measures,” according to The Huffington Post. A majority of Latinos also support background checks, a national database of gun owners and a ban on mentally ill people purchasing guns. The Hispanic community has a reason to be concerned about this issue, as a July 2015 study from the Violence Policy Center found that “Hispanics are disproportionately affected by firearms violence in the United States,” with a “homicide victimization rate for Hispanic victims” that is “nearly twice as high as the murder rate for white victims.”

Climate Change

Pence Has Been A Climate Science Denier And Has Opposed Governmental Action To Combat Climate Change. Asked on the February 21, 2014, edition of MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown about climate change, Pence said, “I don’t know that that  is a resolved issue in science today,” adding, “Just a few years ago, we were talking about global warming. We haven't seen a lot of warming lately. I remember back in the ‘70s we were talking about the coming ice age." In 2014, he sent a letter to Indiana’s congressional delegation encouraging them to defund the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, which combats climate change by placing the first-ever federal limits on carbon pollution from power plants. On June 24, 2015, The Associated Press reported that Pence said that “Indiana won't comply with President Barack Obama's plan to address climate change unless there are significant changes” and that he“threatened to use any legal means available to block the plan.”  Pence tried to soften his denial of climate change on the September 27 edition of CNN’s New Day, saying that “there’s no question that the activities that take place in this country and in countries around the world have some impact on the environment and some impact on climate” -- but rather than offer solutions, Pence advocated “end[ing] the war on coal” and “continu[ing] to develop clean coal technology.”

Latinos Support Governmental Action On Climate Change, Understand That It’s Caused By Human Action. Latinos are “significantly more likely than whites to say the Earth is warming because of human activities,” and a significant share favor governmental action to protect the environment. Moreover, because the Hispanic community is more likely to be affected by the consequences of climate change, a majority of Hispanics rate climate change as “extremely or very important to them personally,” and 63 percent support governmental action to address this issue.

Immigration

Pence’s Record Isn’t Favorable To Undocumented Immigrants, Children Of Immigrants, Or Comprehensive Immigration Reform. According to La Opinión, Pence’s record on immigration issues is “worse than Trump’s” because he has a legislative history on the issue. Pence supported a 2009 measure that would have limited birthright citizenship to children of citizens, people who immigrated legally, and and non-citizens serving in the military.  He also pushed for “self-deportation,” and, as governor of Indiana, he joined a lawsuit to halt the implementation of the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA).

A Majority Of Latinos Support Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Pew has found that the number of Latino voters that say it’s important that immigration reform passes soon has risen, with 66 percent saying it’s either extremely important or very important in 2014 compared to 60 percent in 2013.

Reproductive Rights

Pence Signed “Kitchen Sink” Anti-Choice Bill That Would Place Multiple New Restrictions On Abortion, And He Opposes Planned Parenthood. In March, Pence signed Indiana’s House Enrolled Act 1337, a controversial bill that both banned certain abortion procedures and placed new restrictions on abortion providers. The bill banned abortion if the reason the pregnant person gave for the procedure was the fetus’s race or gender or a fetal abnormality. In addition, the bill required that all fetal remains from abortions or miscarriages at any stage of pregnancy be buried or cremated. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the bill, which The New York Times called “exceptional for its breadth,” days after the Supreme Court released its decision in Whole Woman’s Health vs. Hellerstedt.

A Majority Of Latinas Would Support Candidates Who “Protect Abortion Rights.” Recent data contradicts the idea that Latinos lean conservative because of deeply held religious beliefs (more than half are Catholic), and that because of this they have “presumed conservative views on abortion.” The data shows that close to three-quarters of Latinas lean Democrat and 63 percent would back candidates who would “protect abortion rights.”

MSNBC’s Morning Joe hyped one poll to suggest 30 percent of Latino Nevada voters support Trump, but the survey’s participants who fit the description of Latino likely voters provided such a small sample size that Morning Joe’s blanket statement was likely inaccurate.

On the September 29 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski and correspondent Jacob Soboroff reported that an NBC News/WSJ/Marist poll found 30 percent of Latinos supported Trump. Soboroff, after referring to the results as “surprising” and “frankly puzzling,” went to see if “Latinos for Trump” were “a real thing” by interviewing callers on Jesus Marquez’s radio show on the Las Vegas station La Voz de Nevada.

Marquez is one of the remaining members of Trump’s National Hispanic Advisory Council -- several of them quit, calling the group a “scam” and denouncing Trump’s August 31 anti-immigrant speech as “horrible,” “dishonest,” and “tone-deaf.” Marquez often makes media appearances as a Trump surrogate, so callers to his pro-Trump radio show aren’t likely to be the most representative sample of Latino voters in Nevada.

The problem with MSNBC’s reporting was explained by Futuro Media Group’s Julio Ricardo Varela shortly after the report aired. In an article on NPR’s Latino USA, Varela explained that the poll MSNBC was citing did not contain a large enough sample of Latinos to be representative. Varela dug into the poll’s methodology to explain that the poll surveyed 1,090 adults, only 627 of whom were likely voters, and only 17 percent, or 107, were Latino. Varela laid out the significance of MSNBC’s botched reporting (which also aired on the September 28 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, according to Nexis):

This would mean that Morning Joe did not accurately represent the poll’s data and methodology, and no one at the table challenged the data. It also raises questions about whether a sample of 107 likely Latino voters in Nevada is even large enough to make a confident conclusion that Trump has 30% of the Latino vote in Nevada, especially when a national NBC News/Telemundo/WSJ poll has Trump’s Latino support in the high teens.

One particularly misleading graphic, titled “Among Nevada Latino Likely Voters,” showed the breakdown of the 107 people the poll surveyed who fit that description, but at the bottom noted the total number of people polled, 1,090. The graphic could have left viewers with the impression that 1,090 Latino likely voters were surveyed, instead of 107:

Later in the day, Soboroff acknowledged he was receiving “blowback” for his reporting, but instead of addressing the criticism, he doubled down. Soboroff said, “I actually got a lot of feedback, a lot of blowback online from folks saying that that 30 number percent looked high. That’s the number that we got in our NBC News poll here.”

MSNBC is not the first network to fumble reports about the Latino vote: Earlier this year, Telemundo also based a report that Latinos could be warming to Trump on flawed polling. Given the lousy attempts that Trump has made at Latino outreach, his anti-immigrant rhetoric, and the fact that even his Latino supporters have admitted his Latino outreach is doomed -- as well as the media’s penchant for misrepresenting Latino voters-- a poll that shows a large number of Latinos supporting Trump should be met with skepticism.

According to Stephen A. Nuño, an associate professor at Northern Arizona University, media reporting on the Latino vote can “often be contradictory, confusing, and outright nonsensical” because sloppy methodology is often used when polling Latinos. Nuño explained that sample sizes are often too small to be representative, polls are frequently not conducted bilingually, and polls are not representative of age, country of origin, and gender.

In a June 10 guest appearance on NPR’s Latino USA, Nuño talked about the number of things that can go wrong when polling Latinos and interpreting the numbers:

September 25 marked the start of a week of action by reproductive rights advocates to raise awareness about the Hyde amendment, its anti-choice legacy, and recent efforts to catalyze support for its repeal.

The United for Abortion Coverage Week of Action, led by All* Above All’s coalition of reproductive rights activists, not only demarcates the 40th anniversary of the oppressive anti-choice measure’s adoption, but also comes at a significant time politically. Despite the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt -- which struck down medically unnecessary anti-choice restrictions on abortion access in Texas -- right-wing media and anti-choice politicians have continued to push misinformation about abortion and have doubled down on their support for the Hyde amendment.

During this week of action -- and beyond -- here’s what the media needs to know about the Hyde amendment, its legacy, and the efforts of reproductive rights activists to eliminate the anti-choice funding restriction once and for all.

What Is The Hyde Amendment?

If It’s Been Around For 40 Years, Why Is It Just Now Becoming A Campaign Issue?

What Are Right-Wing Media Saying About Funding For Abortion And Reproductive Health Services?

Who Does The Hyde Amendment Most Impact?

What Can Be Done About The Hyde Amendment?

What Is The Hyde Amendment?

The Hyde amendment is a restriction on federal funding for abortion services. According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), this restriction -- commonly called the Hyde amendment after its first sponsor, Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) -- was first passed as a budgetary rider “to the fiscal 1977 Medicaid appropriation.” Every year since, “the Hyde Amendment has been reenacted” to prevent the use of federal Medicaid funds from covering abortion services, except in case of rape or incest or to protect the life of the mother.

Because of its restrictions, the Hyde amendment has created a significant barrier for low-income patients attempting to access safe and legal abortion care. Considering the number of financial and logistical barriers women already face in trying to access abortion, the Hyde amendment adds an additional and unnecessary complication.

If It’s Been Around For 40 Years, Why Is It Just Now Becoming A Campaign Issue?

In January, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton decided to “publicly do battle against Hyde,” by making the repeal of the anti-choice restriction a top priority, Rebecca Traister wrote in New York magazine. Beyond being the first presidential nominee to publicly speak against the Hyde amendment, Clinton “dropped a bomb on the political conversation about abortion” by drawing attention to “the relationship between reproductive-health-care access and economic inequality,” Traister argued. 

The Democratic Party also formally adopted repealing the Hyde amendment as a priority in its platform -- marking the first time a major political party has targeted the anti-choice restriction on this scale.

Although Clinton and the Democratic Party are drawing much-needed attention to the problematic Hyde amendment, the renewed focus on its impact did not originate with them. Instead, as All* Above All co-chair Jessica González-Rojas explained to The Guardian, the credit belongs with “Women of color leaders” who “have been calling for the repeal of Hyde for decades when most mainstream reproductive rights groups did not prioritize this issue.”

Similarly, ThinkProgress reported in early September, although Hillary Clinton’s commitment to repealing the Hyde amendment “ quickly shot the controversial idea into mainstream political conversations,” it has been the “end goal of dozens of resilient reproductive justice organizations that have been pushing to repeal the Hyde Amendment for decades.”

Now, during this week of action, All* Above All has mobilized a grass-roots coalition involving “68 organizations in 38 states" working "to show support for lifting bans on abortion coverage for low-income women.” Reproductive rights advocates are not the only ones drawing attention to the Hyde amendment during the election, however.

More recently, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump released a letter announcing that he has a new “pro-life coalition,” led by known anti-choice extremist Marjorie Dannenfelser. As part of the announcement, Trump committed himself to making the Hyde amendment “permanent law” in order to prevent “taxpayers from having to pay for abortions.” Trump also promised to defund Planned Parenthood and ban abortion after 20 weeks on the faulty premise that a fetus can feel pain by that point in gestation.

What Are Right-Wing Media Saying About Funding For Abortion And Reproductive Health Services?

Right-wing media have a history of not only attacking Planned Parenthood, but also spreading misinformation about the Hyde amendment and federal funding for other reproductive health care services.

For example, during the December 22 edition of Fox News’ The Five, co-host Eric Bolling reacted to co-host Dana Perino’s statement that “defunding Planned Parenthood” is problematic politically by arguing that funding for abortion services should be “separate” from funding for “women’s services.” Although Bolling did not explicitly name the Hyde amendment, he pushed for Republicans to "defund the abortion part of Planned Parenthood” and set up a “Chinese wall” between abortions and Planned Parenthood’s other services.

Right-wing media have also misled the public about how much of Planned Parenthood’s resources are strictly devoted to abortion, dismissing the many other types of health care the organization provides to both women and men. In July 2015, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly and Fox co-host Andrea Tantaros advocated for defunding Planned Parenthood because, as O’Reilly argued, he did not want “tax dollars going” to abortion providers. Tantaros supported this statement and repeated the myth that because Americans have ample alternatives to Planned Parenthood, “taxpayer dollars should not have to go” to abortion providers.

Beyond the Hyde amendment, right-wing media have also spread misinformation about the nature of Title X family planning funds that are used by providers like Planned Parenthood to supply necessary reproductive health care such as contraception, testing for sexually transmitted infections, and cancer screenings. Right-wing media have argued that Planned Parenthood is an inappropriate recipient of Title X funds, because the organization is incapable of providing wider reproductive health care. In reality, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers are an essential resource for reproductive health care in many communities.

As a result, in September 2016, the Obama administration proposed a rule that would stop anti-choice lawmakers from diverting federal family planning money -- distributed to states through Title X of the Public Health Service Act -- away from Planned Parenthood. As The New York Times explained, “The rule would make clear that state governments must apportion Title X funds based on a provider’s ability to perform family planning services effectively -- not on other factors like whether a provider also offers abortions.” In April, the Obama administration had “warned officials in all 50 states” that blocking Planned Parenthood’s Medicaid funding is likely “out of compliance with federal law,” according to The Washington Post.

Nevertheless, right-wing media alleged that the proposed rule would ensure that there are “millions more in taxpayer dollars for the nation’s abortion market leader at the expense of women’s health.”

Even when not discussing the Hyde amendment or abortion funding, right-wing media have frequently misrepresented the severity of anti-choice restrictions and downplayed the ways these requirements have made abortion and other reproductive health services less accessible.

This is an issue that has spread beyond just right-wing media. In a recent study, Media Matters analyzed 14 months of evening cable news discussion about reproductive rights and found that media frequently ignore or underestimate the impact of economic barriers when talking about abortion access. In this study we found that only eight news segments even briefly mentioned the economic barriers women face to accessing abortion.

Who Does The Hyde Amendment Most Impact?

1. Low-Income Patients

Low-income patients and their families are one of the primary groups affected by the Hyde amendment’s restriction on funding for abortion services.

The Guttmacher Institute found in a July 2016 study that the “number of women potentially affected by the Hyde Amendment is substantial” given the significant number of women dependent on federally subsidized medical services. According to Guttmacher’s director of public policy, Heather Boonstra, for women between 15 and 33 who depend on Medicaid, 60 percent live in places (35 states and D.C.) “that do not cover abortion, except in limited circumstances.” As a result, approximately 7 million women are potentially impacted by Hyde’s restrictions on federal funding for abortion care.

In January, Slate’s Christina Cauterucci highlighted Clinton’s focus on repealing the Hyde amendment because of its disproportionate impact on low-income patients. According to Clinton, abortion is not accessible enough “'as long as we have laws on the book like the Hyde Amendment making it harder for low-income women to exercise their full rights.'” Cauterucci concluded that if Clinton succeeded in making the repeal of Hyde a central issue in the campaign, it would be “a long-overdue step toward addressing the intersection between economic insecurity and reproductive health.”

The National Women’s Law Center explained in 2015 that “because of the high cost of the procedure, low-income women are often forced to delay obtaining an abortion,” which increases the out-of-pocket costs. Thus the Hyde amendment exacerbates the substantial financial disadvantage low-income persons already face in obtaining abortion care.

2. Women Of Color

Women of color -- especially black women, Latinas, and Native Americans -- suffer a particularly disparate impact from the Hyde amendment’s ban on federal abortion coverage.

According to a September 2016 research brief from Ibis Reproductive Health and All* Above All on the impact of out-of-pocket costs on abortion access, “Because low-income women and women of color are disproportionately covered by public health insurance programs, restrictions in coverage increase their socioeconomic disadvantage.”

This assessment matched the findings of the National Women’s Law Center’s study, which noted that women of color were not only “more likely than White women to face financial barriers when seeking abortions” but also “more likely to experience unintended pregnancy, due to racial, ethnic, gender, and economic healthcare inequalities.”

Black Women

In 2015 the National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda reported that “black women have more than double the unintended pregnancy rate of white women,” which is particularly concerning given that “the risk of death from pregnancy complications was nearly three and a half times higher for Black women than for white women.”

According to a recent Guttmacher Institute fact sheet, black women do experience higher rates of unintended pregnancy and more frequently elect to abort. Think Progress’ Kira Lerner explained these numbers simply reflect “the difficulties that many women in minority communities face in accessing high-quality contraceptive services and in using their chosen method of birth control consistently and effectively.” Lerner noted black women also experience a “racial disparity … for other health measures including rates of diabetes, breast and cervical cancer and sexually transmitted infections.”

Latinas

Latinas’ access to reproductive care is significantly impacted not just by the Hyde amendment but also by the financial and logistical barriers created by anti-choice restrictions in states, like Texas, that have a high percentage of Latinos.

According to a joint op-ed from the executive directors of Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health (NLIRH), California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, and Voto Latino, “The first woman known to die of an unsafe illegal abortion after the Hyde Amendment was a Latina” named Rosie Jimenez, who “died from septic shock in October 1977” months after the Hyde amendment first went into effect. Since then, the op-ed explained, the Hyde amendment has continued to have “an especially devastating effect” on Latina communities, due to their high national rates of Medicaid enrollment.

In an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of abortion provider Whole Woman’s Health, NLIRH explained the material consequences of barriers created by state anti-choice restrictions, like Texas’ HB 2. NLIRH argued that due to the "significant geographic, transportation, infrastructure, and cost challenges" Latinas already face when seeking medical care, clinic closures caused by Texas’ anti-choice law would create "severe burdens in accessing reproductive healthcare."

Native Americans

Native Americans are disparately impacted not only by restrictions on federal funding for abortion, but also by a lack of public awareness about the unique barriers to reproductive health care faced by their communities.

As Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center executive director Charon Asetoyer explained to Salon, despite the disparate impact anti-choice restrictions have on Native American communities, Native people are often a “silent population” in national conversations about reproductive rights. For example, she noted that although Native Americans are entitled to receive care through the federally funded Indian Health Service (IHS), “We are still struggling to aspire to the Hyde Amendment while others work to get rid of it.”

Indeed, as a 2002 survey of Native American women’s reproductive health care access found, 85 percent of IHS offices “often refuse to provide Native American women even the limited access to abortion services to which they are legally entitled under the Hyde Amendment.”

As a result, Asetoyer continued, many Native Americans who wish to access abortion services are forced to incur higher out-of-pocket costs in order to travel to the nearest abortion provider when “A lot of the time women in these situations don’t even have an automobile to drive to the nearest Planned Parenthood, let alone the money to pay for the procedure.”

3. LGBT Persons

In an op-ed for Advocate, National LGBTQ Task Force representative Candace Bond-Theriault affirmed that the LGBTQ and reproductive justice movements are “inseparable” because “many of the same people who propose policies that discriminate against LGBTQ people also [are] actively working to deny access to reproductive health care.”

While the Hyde amendment makes abortion care inaccessible for many, Bond-Theriault highlighted how anti-choice restrictions additionally perpetuate structural inequalities wherein individuals are “stigmatized because of the personal bodily choices that [they] make.”

Lambda Legal’s Camilla Taylor, Caroline Sacerdote, and Kara Ingelhart previously explained the pervasive and negative forms of stigma that both movements address, noting that, “People who have an abortion -- whether members of the LGBT community or not -- experience something familiar to all LGBT people: stigma.” They emphasized the importance of combating abortion stigma because, “As the LGBT community knows all too well, it is hard to fight against efforts to roll back your civil rights when you have to remain in the closet.”

In an op-ed titled “Abortion Access and Trans Health Care Are Bound Together in Texas,” Texas Equal Access Fund president Nan Little Kirkpatrick wrote that “the Hyde amendment is discrimination in health care” faced by those attempting to “exercise their reproductive rights as granted by the Supreme Court.” She argued that the effort to take down structurally oppressive measures like the Hyde amendment “expressly highlights the ways that the movements for trans and reproductive justice intersect” because both involve “bodily autonomy.”

4. Service Members And Veterans

Because the Hyde amendment is a restriction on federal abortion funding, its impact is felt by anyone dependent on federally subsidized medical care, including service members or veterans.

After the Supreme Court’s 5-3 decision against Texas’ anti-choice law HB 2, Salon’s Amanda Marcotte named the repeal of the Hyde amendment one of the next major goals for pro-choice advocates. According to Marcotte, “The effects of the Hyde Amendment have been devastating” for both low-income families and service members because it means “no federal employees, service women, veterans or women on Medicaid have access to coverage for abortion.”

What Can Be Done About The Hyde Amendment?

As Steph Herold, managing director of the Sea Change Program, wrote in an op-ed for Rewire, All* Above All “is playing a pivotal role by introducing pro-active abortion access legislation and encouraging elected officials to come out against the Hyde Amendment.”

The organization represents a coalition of reproductive justice advocates and women of color whose goals are to catalyze action to “restore public insurance coverage so that every woman, however much she makes, can get affordable, safe abortion care when she needs it.”

From September 25 to October 1, All* Above All is leading a week of action, which includes “130 activities hosted by 68 organizations in 38 states to show support for lifting bans on abortion coverage for low-income women.” The United for Abortion Coverage Week of Action also includes “a multi-city ad campaign amplifying the voices of Catholics [for choice] across the county” as well as a “celebration of local victories” to earn recognition for the need to repeal oppressive anti-choice restrictions like the Hyde amendment.

In addition, All* Above All has mobilized support for the EACH Woman Act, proposed legislation that would repeal the Hyde amendment and guarantee “coverage for abortion for every woman, however much she earns or however she is insured.” According to All* Above All, the bill now has over 120 co-sponsors who have committed themselves to affirming that people have the right to make the best reproductive health care decision for themselves and their families.

To mark 40 years of the Hyde amendment’s dangerous anti-choice legacy, NARAL Pro-Choice America shared the stories of several individuals “from diverse backgrounds and experiences [who] came together to support repeal of Hyde.” Although their stories represent a variety of experiences in trying to gain access to necessary abortion care, the common refrain and message to the media was clear. As one of the individuals, Mary Tobin, wrote: “If equality is truly a pillar that our country represents and embraces, then the repeal of the Hyde Amendment is crucial to upholding our country’s identity.”

La Opinión reported on a Media Matters study that found that Latinos made up only a small fraction of guests invited on cable news shows to discuss Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s attacks on Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage. The article featured input from Media Matters Hispanic media researcher Cristina López, who explained that this finding is representative of a larger tendency in the media to marginalize the Latino perspective in their reporting, which could have serious “negative effects” and “perpetuate damaging stereotypes” about Latinos.

The September 21 report focused on a Media Matters quantitative study of guest diversity on CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC that found that only 11.5 percent of guests discussing Trump’s racist attacks against a Latino judge were Hispanic, while the majority of those discussing the topic -- 88.5 percent -- were non-Hispanic. The article cited previous Media Matters studies that confirmed the media’s “broader pattern” of marginalizing Latinos’ voices “even when the [Latino] community is attacked” and often relegating them to the single issue of immigration.

Media Matters’ Cristina López pointed out that a failure to effectively include the Latino perspective on issues that affect them “can have negative effects on the narratives that come out of news shows” and explained that “without the inclusion of Latino voices in the discussion of topics of the day, including those that most affect them, we run the risk of having imprecise information that perpetuates damaging stereotypes.” Translated from the September 21 article (emphasis original):

Latinos are the largest minority in the country and even when the community is attacked, they do not have a voice on cable news networks [to comment] on the electoral bloc’s most pressing topics, according to what a "Media Matters" study reported this Wednesday.

[...]

In statements to this newspaper, researcher Cristina López explained that the low representation of Latinos “can have negative effects on the narrative that come out of news shows.”

“Without the inclusion of Latino voices in the discussion of topics of the day, including those that most affect them, we run the risk of having imprecise information that perpetuates damaging stereotypes” about Hispanics, she said.

For López, it’s urgent that TV producers and executives improve the participation of Latinos and other minorities, especially in a hostile environment in which racist attacks have changed the current of the national dialogue.

“Latinos have demonstrated, with campaigns like #AskMeMás, that they are anxious and capable of discussing issues that affect them most and being part of broader conversations. The ball is in the court of the news channels,” López stated.

According to Media Matters, the lack of inclusion of Latino voices on national programs is not isolated but rather makes up a part of a broader pattern: after the massacre in a gay club in Orlando (Florida), none of the major cable channels included a significant number of Hispanic guests, despite the fact that 90% of the victims were of Latino origin.

And an analysis of Sunday shows, in English and Spanish, left proof that Latinos are only sought out to comment about immigration issues, ignoring the diversity of opinions about other topics of life nationally.

Although much is spoken about the importance of the Latino vote in this election year, the cable channels “rarely include Hispanics” in their news shows, Media Matters said.

A Media Matters study of guests brought on cable news networks to discuss Donald Trump's attacks on federal Judge Gonzalo Curiel’s Mexican heritage found that Hispanics were critically underrepresented in these discussions, even though Hispanics are disproportionately impacted by the issue. The Republican presidential nominee made repeated racist comments against Judge Curiel between May 27 and June 9, yet Hispanic voices made up a mere 11.5 percent of guests invited to analyze the racially fueled attacks.

On May 27, Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is presiding over a lawsuit against Trump over his now-defunct real estate seminars, ordered the release of documents related to fraud allegations against Trump University, and Trump responded with unfounded accusations of bias. He claimed that there was a conflict of interest because Trump proposed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and the judge was “Mexican.” The judge, who is of Mexican heritage, was born in Indiana.

Media and political figures across the political spectrum denounced the racist remarks. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), who endorsed Trump earlier this year, called Trump’s attack “the textbook definition of racism.” Hispanic media figures, in particular, took issue with Trump’s comments. Yet in covering the topic, cable news networks hosted an alarmingly low number of a Latinos to discuss it, omitting important perspective from the Latino community, which has become increasingly concerned about issues of racial discrimination.

A Media Matters review of coverage from CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC primetime shows found that Hispanic voices made up only 11.5 percent of the discussion of the topic, while non-Hispanic voices dominated the conversation, making up 88.5 percent.

The media have a pattern of treating Latinos as a monolithic group focused on the single issue of immigration and excluding them from discussions of issues that may deeply affect their communities. A previous Media Matters study that analyzed the diversity of guests invited to discuss the Pulse Nightclub massacre in Orlando, FL, in which the majority of victims were Hispanic, also confirmed this trend.

Methodology

Media Matters searched the Nexis database using the search terms "trump w/50 (curiel or judge or mexican)" for weekday CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC programs airing between 8 pm ET and 11 pm ET from May 27 through June 9 and reviewed the transcripts for segments about Donald Trump's attacks on Judge Curiel. Segments in which two or more participants discussed Curiel were included, with the exception of packaged or live news reports from correspondents. All guests were coded for ethnicity.

Julie Alderman and Sarah Wasko contributed to this study.