‘We Deserve A Choice’: Jill Tokuda Rails Against ‘Harmful’ GOP Attacks On Reproductive Rights

5 months ago

During House floor remarks on Wednesday, Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-HI) spoke about the Dobbs decision and Republicans’ efforts to restrict access to abortion care.

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00:00Thank You Mr. Speaker. 48 years ago a teenage girl about to enter her senior

00:05year in high school made a very difficult and personal choice. She was

00:09young and didn't come from any money. Her boyfriend was just a year older and

00:13preferred surfing over working. Family and friends all had opinions on what she

00:17should do and yes she was pushed to have an abortion. But the girl knew that what

00:21happened to her body was her choice. I stand before you today as my mother's

00:27choice. A right she fully exercised knowing that the decision whether to

00:31have a baby was hers and hers alone. Two years ago with the Dobbs decision six

00:37unelected conservative judges robbed women of their basic human rights to

00:42make decisions, to make choices about their family, their relationships, their

00:46bodily autonomy. They reversed half a century of legal precedent and opened

00:51the door for far-right politicians to ban, restrict, and interfere with the

00:55woman's right to have an abortion and access reproductive care. And we know

01:01that we are awaiting yet another decision from the Supreme Court on

01:03whether women can get life-saving abortion care over the extreme abortion

01:08bans being enacted across our country. Today we see the harmful and even deadly

01:14impacts of this reckless and irresponsible decision. One estimate

01:18projected that over 171,000 women were forced to cross state lines for abortion

01:23care last year, some even crossing the ocean to my home state of Hawaii. And

01:27while many of these women are being forced to leave the red states that they

01:31live in to access the health care that they need, Republicans just won't stop.

01:36Earlier this year our colleagues in the Republican Study Committee endorsed a

01:40nationwide ban on abortion with zero, zero exceptions. That cruel vision is

01:47reflected in the dangerous and inhumane policy riders the Republicans have

01:52inserted into our government spending bills, including those that would be

01:56considered under this rule. Democrats have pushed back against this relentless

02:01assault on women across the country by introducing HR 12, the Women's Health

02:06Protection Act. This bill would reinstate the constitutional protections to

02:10privacy and bodily autonomy that Roe v. Wade provided and further prevent

02:14governments from interfering with access to abortion care and reproductive health

02:19services in the future. Hawaii, which I am very proud to represent here in these

02:23halls, was at the forefront of protecting a woman's right to choose by being the

02:28very first state to legalize abortions. Since then we have vigilantly and we

02:32will continue to fight to protect those rights we fought so hard for over 50

02:36years ago. That is why I stand before you today. I'm here to call on my colleagues

02:42to stand with us in firmly rejecting these harmful attacks on women, women in

02:47all of our lives, girls, women. We deserve a choice. I was once a choice. I know my

02:55mother never would have imagined that her granddaughters would be living in a

02:59world where they had fewer rights, fewer choices than she did. My nieces deserve

03:05that right to make choices for themselves about when to start a family

03:10and what happens to their bodies. For my nieces, for all of our nieces, for all the

03:16girls and women of our country, I ask my colleagues to defeat the previous

03:19question so that we can bring up the Women's Health Protection Act and I

03:23yield back the balance of my time.

‘We Deserve A Choice’: Jill Tokuda Rails Against ‘Harmful’ GOP Attacks On Reproductive Rights

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