‘President Barack Obama ended months of internal White House debate by siding with a group of mostly female advisers who urged him not to limit a health-care law mandate to provide contraceptives, even at the risk of alienating Catholic voters in November, people familiar with the discussions said.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic and a two-term governor of Kansas, was joined by several female Obama advisers in urging against a broad exemption for religious organizations. To do so would leave too many women without coverage and sap the enthusiasm for Obama among women’s rights advocates, they said, according to the people, who spoke about the deliberations on condition of anonymity.’

Read more: Obama Weighed Religious Politics in Contraceptives Decision

1) It’s about religious freedom, not birth control. 2) Obama has lost even the support of his liberal Catholic allies. 3) It’s not just Catholics. 4) It gives Republicans a potent campaign wedge issue. 5) Obama needs the Catholic vote

Read more: War on Secularism: Five reasons why Obama is losing the contraception fight

‘Over the past several years, Black and Latino fundamentalist anti-abortion groups have vigorously aligned themselves with the white religious right in the battle to take down family planning. In 2010, the Radiance Foundation launched a nationwide billboard campaign dubbed “TooManyAborted.com” that targeted communities of color with billboards characterizing abortion as “black genocide.” Mother Jones recently reported that a House Bill advocating the prohibition of “race-selection abortions” has been proposed to Republican lawmakers. The Bill argues that “abortion is the leading cause of death in the black community.”’

Read more: God’s Body, God’s Plan: The Komen Furor and Abortion as Black/Latino Genocide