No Reproductive Justice Without Palestinian Liberation
Mandy Medley, photo by Steel Brooks.
The following speech was given at Union Park at the March on the DNC on Monday, August 19th.
Chicago for Abortion Rights is out here today because we REFUSE to allow the Democrats to use abortion rights and trans rights as a bargaining chip to force us to vote for their imperialist agenda. We refuse the liberal co-optation of the reproductive justice movement that tells us to “vote blue no matter who”. We reject Israel’s pinkwashing, and we do not stand with Zionist so-called feminists who celebrate their equal rights to blockade aid trucks and murder Palestinian families. We remember all the times Democrats promised to protect our right to bodily autonomy and utterly failed us. We know that there is no reproductive justice without Palestinian liberation, and we refuse to let the Democrats separate and divide our struggles. We refuse to vote for genocide.
We will not be distracted by the electoral circus of our two party system, which is funded by corporations and billionaires. Another casualty of this absurd election cycle is our abortion funds, many of whom are losing funding because the wealthy liberal institutions who pledged money after the Democrats allowed Roe to fall have now pulled that money to give to Kamala’s campaign, hindering thousands and thousands of Americans from getting the abortion care they need. We will continue to fund and support our abortion funds which have been doing all they can to keep abortion accessible after the Democrats abandoned abortion rights on a national stage.
And now, when it’s too late, Kamala Harris and many other Democrats are making reproductive justice one of the pillars of their campaigns. But empty campaign promises do not provide abortion care to people in states with restrictive abortion bans. Empty campaign promises do not keep clinic doors open. Empty campaign promises do not stop our tax dollars from going to Israel’s settler colonial project instead of materially supporting families here in the U.S. Empty campaign promises do not stop the bombs from falling on thousands of families in Gaza. We don’t want empty campaign promises. We want what the majority of Americans want— expanded access to reproductive and gender-affirming health care, support for families, and an end to U.S. arms exports to Israel.
And we know no matter who wins the election, we will show up in the streets day after day to make sure every person has the basic human right to reproductive and gender affirming healthcare, and we will mobilize and organize day after day until the U.S. stops sending money and weapons to Israel, and Palestine is free. We cannot rely on the Democrats to deliver us our liberation; we must seize it ourselves. Real feminists know that our liberation is bound up with the liberation of all working class people fighting for justice and freedom all around the world, including and especially in Palestine. No one is free until everyone is free.
And finally, we know that real power comes not from politicians, but from the people, and the people say:
Free, free Palestine!
Free Palestine, free abortion!
Please consider donating to the Chicago Abortion Fund.
This piece first appeared at Rampant.
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