Opposing Extreme Anti-Abortion Agenda

Floor Speech

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the extreme anti-abortion agenda that my colleagues on the other side are advancing, despite clear opposition across our country.

In November, Mr. Speaker, access to abortion care was on the ballot, and the American people rejected the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe and refused to allow far-right extremists to take away their right to bodily autonomy.

Voters in Vermont, in the Speaker's home State of California, and in my home State of Michigan codified abortion rights in their State constitutions.

Voters in Montana, as well as Kentucky, Senator Mitch McConnell's home State, rejected attempts to restrict their access to reproductive freedom. Still, they are advancing a policy agenda to criminalize abortion nationwide with no exceptions for rape or incest.

Let me be clear: Abortion bans impact and endanger the lives of many of our residents, including those who live with disabilities.

We will have many fights ahead of us, Mr. Speaker, and I will continue to hold the line to push back against the policy violence by those who want to continue to inflict on the American people the extreme right agenda.

We will continue, my colleagues and I, to mobilize and organize a movement to secure reproductive justice across our Nation, and I will continue to fight like hell until abortion rights are restored as the law of the land. Palestinian Human Rights

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Speaker, I rise today as the only Palestinian American serving in the United States Congress.

I feel a strong responsibility, Mr. Speaker, to humanize the Palestinian people who are living under increasingly oppressive and racist apartheid policies.

2022 was one of the deadliest in memory for Palestinians. Dozens of children were killed by the Government of Israel, and many were targeted. Groups like DCI-Palestine that monitor these killings were targeted.

We cannot look away, Mr. Speaker, and gaslight the oppressive and violent policies toward the Palestinian people, who are experiencing, right now, literally, the taking away of their human dignity and their right to be able to freely live and raise their children without this type of targeting.

We can't keep handing over billions each year to an apartheid state violating human rights. We are dealing with a far-right government there now promising to make things worse.

They are not even hiding it, Mr. Speaker. They are intentionally saying exactly what they are going to continue to do, which is the status quo, again, making it very dangerous for Palestinians to live and thrive.

No person--not one, Palestinian, Israeli, anyone--deserves to suffer or die for who they are, what they believe, or where they were born. The sooner we end unconditional support for Israel's apartheid government, the sooner we can begin making good on that belief.

Today, I am thinking of my Sity, my grandmother, who deserves to have human dignity. She should not be denied of who she is solely because she was born Palestinian, to be able to feel safe and to be able to have human rights.

I am also thinking today, Mr. Speaker, of the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and the countless Palestinians who deserved to live but whose lives were cut short.

I thank the Speaker for at least trying to listen and hear from someone who, again, is connected to so many folks on the ground there who deserve to be seen and heard in this Chamber.

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