Reproductive justice and the fight for Palestine are both struggles for LIBERATION!

Speech made by Anti-War Committee member Crista Ocampo at the MN Abortion Action Committee protest in front of Senator Klobuchar’s office on 11/24/2024

The fight for a free Palestine and the fight for reproductive justice are connected at their core. They are both about liberation. They are both about the right to live free from state violence. They are both about the right to control our own bodies. And they are both about the right to resist systems that treat our lives as disposable.

Reproductive justice isn’t just about supporting access to abortion. It’s about supporting the rights of all of us to make these types of decisions for ourselves. When we see the oppression of our reproductive rights, it’s not just an issue of women’s rights. It’s an issue of all of our rights and demonstrates just how quickly any of them can be stolen from us. It’s an issue of abuse of power, it’s an issue of loss of control, and it’s an issue of normalizing dehumanization. 

Let us be clear: war, and the violence that comes with it, are directly linked to the destruction of reproductive justice. The ongoing wars abroad and militarized violence that happens right here at home disproportionately affect women, trans, and non-binary people of color. And the politicians who are sending bombs and military aid to uphold the apartheid occupation are the same politicians who are stripping our reproductive rights here in the states. Israel would absolutely not be able to uphold this occupation without our tax dollars funding it. And I don’t know about you, but I absolutely don’t want my tax dollars funding apartheid occupation! Especially when there are so many people dying here because of lack of access to healthcare. 

I want my taxes to go towards universal health care, not bunker busters that level schools and hospitals. I want my tax dollars to go towards supporting longer maternity leave, not towards making medical care impossible to provide and increasing miscarriages by over 300% in Gaza. I want my tax dollars to cover gender affirming care, not to build a fucking wall. 

Women in the West Bank who are in labor trying to go to the hospital still have to go through every single checkpoint on the path to their hospital and still have to wait, while in labor, for such dangerous amounts of time that they are forced to give birth at whatever checkpoint they’re stuck at. All in unsanitized conditions, surrounded by armed colonizers, being treated as though they are less than human. 

So today we stand here to represent our commitment to the struggle! We will not be silenced by anyone who tells us that our fights for justice are separate! We will not stand by and watch as the people of Palestine struggle for freedom and justice! Today, just like tomorrow and every day after that, we stand in unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people. We do this because we believe in freedom and justice for all, whether it be in Palestine or in our own neighborhoods.

Here, Palestinian lives matter and their freedom, their safety, and their right to self-determination must be protected! Here, just like our solidarity with the people of Palestine, our abortion rights are here to stay! 

It does not matter if it is here in the U.S. or in Gaza or the West Bank, when our rights are under attack we will use everything that we have to fight back! 

When abortion rights are under attack, what do we do?

*Stand up, fight back*

When Palestine is under attack, what do we do?

*Stand up, fight back*

What do we do?

*Stand up, fight back*