John, 

I'm reaching out to you today with a heavy heart. Late last week, with one stroke of a pen, Florida's far-right governor passed a bill banning abortions after six weeks – before many women even know they're pregnant. 

I am absolutely enraged and heartbroken. In the span of the last two weeks, millions of people in our nation have lost the right to a safe and effective abortion – and we know Republicans won't stop there. That's why we must continue our fight for reproductive freedom.

I've championed reproductive rights for decades now, and I have seen the devastating effects of restricting women's health care choices firsthand. So we must continue to fight back – even now, when the odds feel impossible and the fight feels exhausting.

That's why I'm calling on 10,000 of my strongest supporters to sign my urgent petition to protect the right to choose, and I am counting on you to be one of the signatures we need to get there. Please add your name now.

This fight is deeply personal for me. Because I know what it's like to experience the fear, stigma and despair of being denied the care that you need. As a teenager living in a pre-Roe world, I made the difficult decision to have an abortion. It was a private decision that was nobody else's business. But because it was illegal, I had to get that abortion in Mexico.

And now, six decades later, pregnant people in Florida will be facing the same lack of care that I did as a scared teen – and that just sickens me, John.

It is fundamentally wrong to restrict anyone's access to health care – plain and simple. That's why I've been working in Congress to expand access to affordable child care and to ensure access to paid family leave. I authored the EACH Woman Act, which would repeal the discriminatory Hyde Amendment that has restricted women's access to reproductive health care - particularly poor women and women of color.

We cannot let the rights of millions more people be stripped away. We must stand together and fight back. So please, John, before our deadline at 11:59 p.m., will you add your name to our petition demanding that abortion access be protected nationwide?

Thank you for your urgent support.

Barbara Lee