John,

A new CNN investigation found that Israel’s government is blocking maternity kits and other essential aid supplies from entering Gaza, in addition to blocking food, water, and fuel.

Over 155,000 pregnant and breastfeeding Palestinians are being starved and lack access to healthcare, because Israel’s government keeps targeting healthcare facilities.

Families are eating animal feed and grass, and children are dying from dehydration and malnutrition. Many who line up for rare aid trucks are massacred by Israeli soldiers.

Today is International Women's Day, and groups like the Palestinian Feminist Collective are coordinating actions denouncing this “reproductive genocide” and instead calling for anti-imperialist, decolonial feminism that recognizes the worth of every human.

Any lawmaker who cares about women’s rights and reproductive justice should be demanding a permanent ceasefire and an end to Israel’s brutal blockade.

Working toward liberation for all, including for women and gender-expansive people, involves dismantling the interlocking and dehumanizing systems of oppression that harm us all.

Back in March 2016, women in Gaza who’d been struggling as Israel’s government targeted and restricted clean water, sent a letter to people in Flint Michigan:

On International Women’s Day, we, the Palestinian women living under Israeli occupation, announce our solidarity and extend our compassion to you. We understand what you are going through because we face similar hardships in Gaza… And we want you to know that you are not alone.

We are not alone. Our liberation is tied together, and acting in solidarity enriches our humanity.

Let’s continue to push for Palestinian liberation, self-determination, and reproductive justice, as well as bodily autonomy and reproductive justice in the United States.

With recent attacks on IVF and birth control now joining attacks on trans rights and abortion care, it’s past time to finally enshrine the right to abortion in federal U.S. law. I’m supporting multiple bills to defend or expand our abortion rights, including the Women’s Health Protection Act.

Will you sign on today to support the Women’s Health Protection Act, to protect birthing people’s right to abortion care nationwide?

We’ll continue pushing our government to stop supporting this genocide, and demanding a world with freedom for all people—including equal access to abortion care and reproductive care.

In solidarity,

Rashida