Our View-Children's hospital issue foes employ past rhetoric

One of the ads being televised for the November election is actress Jamie Lee Curtis leading a chorus of children in a recording studio rendition of John Lennon's emotive song "Imagine."


The commercial is in support of California Proposition 3, the Children's Hospital Bond Act. The off-key choir is presumably comprised of children who have been, or are currently being, treated for debilitating illnesses like cancer, leukemia, diabetes, sickle cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, heart defects and others.


Resistance to the bond is an attempt to partially rewrite a failed policy based on bigotry from the last decade. Before connecting language used to pass the now defunct Proposition 187, though, let's give Proposition 3 some worthwhile credibility.


Some of the voter information guide highlights of the $980 million bond initiative are that the money will be used to "fund the construction, expansion, remodeling, renovation, furnishing and equipping of children's hospitals."


Other provisions are that 80 percent of the money is earmarked for hospitals that treat children for the previously listed illnesses and 20 percent goes to University of California general acute care hospitals.


One might "imagine all the people" would support such a worthy endeavor, but that isn't true. A select group of conservative elitists have latched onto opposing this initiative.

While the political action consortium consisting of the National Tax Limitation Committee, the People's Advocacy and Flashreport.org guise themselves as taxpayer advocacy groups, the codified language used in their argument essentially pits children against children, rich against poor and nativist against undocumented.


Almost arguing against their own argument, the Proposition 3 opposition implores voters, "Don't be swayed by the labeling ‘for the children.'" Read the voter information on the bond's provisions. It's precise that it's "for the children."

In the next paragraph, however, they insist, "And remember who will pay the bill … your children and grandchildren." That is fine-tuned fear mongering.


They don't concede that if they're own children had one of these dreadful illnesses that they would probably be at the front of the line asking for treatment. These groups seem to believe that the only children who should have access to children's health care are those whose parents can afford it.


In their own words on the voter guide, they proclaim, "It appears that a driving force behind this measure is to provide a backdoor way of compensating hospitals for treating indigents (including illegal aliens) who don't pay their way through the front door."


Read that again. Did these groups declare war on the poor and make the children's hospital proposition an immigration issue? Did they just brand children as criminals and aliens undeserving of health care? Read that loaded sentence one more time.

This anti-Proposition 3 rhetoric parallels the hate-filled messages used to promote Proposition 187, the 1994 "SOS" initiative — named for the Save Our State group who created 187 — to deny social services, health care and public education to undocumented children.


While 187 passed on the 1994 ballot, the attempt to use state law to circumvent federal immigration policy drew a tremendous backlash. Voters originally passed 187 because of Armageddon-laced messages from the Save Our State group, which has since been declared a race-based hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its overt ties to white supremacist organizations.


Following several years of legal battles that eventually reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Republicans, sensing they were about to get stomped by the Supreme Court, dropped it like a hot potato. They shifted gear primarily because public sentiment had shifted California voters to the Democratic side of the aisle.


While opponents to Proposition 3 haven't violated any Constitutional rights, rejecting the initiative because of the anti-immigrant language would hinge on denying basic human rights to vulnerable children.


One of the great things about the California voter is an inherent readiness to champion the underdog. In this instance, the "little guys" are children with serious health problems.


Children have no choice and no voice of their own. Children are not criminals and their access to quality health care should not be determined by their immigration status or lack of resources. These are issues we must "imagine" for them.


We need to be their voices on Nov. 4 by voting "Yes" on Proposition 3 because it's the right thing to do.