John, I gave a speech on the House floor condemning the GOP's latest attack on abortion rights. Here's why:

This fight is personal to me: When I was 15 years old, long before Roe v. Wade, I got pregnant. With the help of my mother, I made the decision to get an abortion. But with no access to the health care I needed in the United States, I had to travel from my home in California to Mexico to receive a back-alley abortion in the middle of the night.

My experience was traumatizing – I'm lucky I survived my procedure, especially when so many Black women die of septic abortions. But I refuse to go back to a time when abortion is criminalized. That’s why I’m fighting tooth and nail so that this generation and the next will have the right to safe and legal abortions.

But Republicans' first order of business in the majority is to push an ideological anti-choice bill that deliberately fails to condemn attacks on abortion clinics and women's health care facilities. 

Let’s be clear: Violent, ideologically based attacks are unacceptable under any circumstance.

We need to send a clear message to the GOP that the majority of this country supports access to safe, legal abortions. And people, not politicians, should be making decisions about their bodies. That’s why I'm asking 10,000 members of this grassroots team – including you, John – to sign on to my urgent petition before midnight. So please, will you add your name right now to stand with me in the fight to restore reproductive freedom nationwide?

They're our bodies. They're our choices. Your voice is essential in this fight – thank you for speaking out.

– Barbara Lee