Good afternoon to you all.
I appreciate members of the media being here.
Apologies for the delay.
As you know, Dr. Zhang is just coming from the operating room, and we were waiting for her to join us.
Today we face the single biggest attack on women, queer and pregnant people and reproductive rights in most of our lifetimes.
And this right-wing Supreme Court has also given every indication that they plan to carry out draconian attacks on LGBTQ rights.
Working people cannot rely on the Democratic Party and their NGO allies who fail to mount a fight against the right.
We have to get independently organized.
We must make Seattle a sanctuary for pregnant people and their doctors and other care providers facing prosecution for seeking and performing abortions.
Laws violating basic bodily autonomy and criminalizing reproductive health care are fundamentally unjust and our movement will not allow Seattle to be complicit.
My office is introducing legislation to prevent Seattle police from arresting people, either patients or doctors or their care providers, for outstanding warrants related to anti-abortion laws around the country.
Let anyone threatened by draconian anti-abortion laws come to Seattle without fear of prosecution.
I urge the Washington State Legislature to similarly pass urgent legislation to make our entire state a sanctuary for pregnant people and their care providers.
As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.
And aiding the legal persecution of pregnant people and their doctors and their care providers would be deeply unjust.
The right has conducted this unconscionable attack on women, LGBTQ people and their doctors, despite the fact that a powerful majority of Americans support abortion rights and over 70% oppose dismantling Roe v. Wade.
But controlling the House, Senate and White House, President Biden and the Democratic Party could have defended abortion rights if they had the political will to do so.
They could still eliminate the filibuster, just like Trump's Republicans did in order to appoint right-wing Supreme Court judges.
They could pass single-payer health care paid for by taxing billionaires.
They could expand the size of the Supreme Court and appoint justices who support the right to bodily autonomy.
But rather than do any of this, Democrats and their NGO allies failed to even mount a real fight back in the wake of the leaked ruling months ago.
In fact, Democrats have had 50 years to codify Roe into law with full control of all three branches of government under three democratic presidents at the start of their terms, and they have utterly failed to do so.
We need a new party for working people, women, queer, and all oppressed people that bases itself on social movements and fights unambiguously for our interests.
Liberal feminism as a whole has proven to be completely bankrupt.
The mass liberal women's organizations, by relying on purely legalistic strategies and their dead-end alliance with the Democratic Party, rather than building mass movements, share responsibility for this historic defeat for women's and queer rights.
Fighting for our rights and winning back those we have lost means fighting for socialist feminism.
We need a mass movement with democratic structures that can provide a headquarters for the struggle to defeat the right and protect or win back our right to bodily autonomy.
This movement needs to have clearly defined political goals, democratic structures, and complete independence from the Democrats.
Socialist organizations, unions, and social justice groups should join forces to launch such an organization.
Necessary structures for our movement must be built so that demands, tactics, and strategy are democratically decided.
We need to draw on some lessons from history.
Roe v. Wade was not won in the first place due to some benevolence or wisdom of the justice system or by some clever bipartisan political strategy by the Democratic Party.
Like all victories for the working class under capitalism, it was wrenched from the hands of the powerful by mass movements led by the rank and file.
Roe v. Wade was won through the massive combined pressure of the women's movement, civil rights movement, anti-war movement, labor movement, and militant strike action by union workers.
And this was despite a conservative majority on the Supreme Court at that time, including recent Nixon appointees.
But the court passed Roe out of fear of the millions of people out on the streets.
and at that time a growing anti-establishment, anti-capitalist consciousness.
We will need to rebuild similar militant mass action led by the labor movement and rank-and-file workers in order to defeat this attack.
I urge Mayor Harrell and all city elected officials to include in the next city budget funding to make abortion in Seattle free for anyone fleeing states that have criminalized reproductive health care and for all Seattle residents.
If they do not, then I will be bringing forward a people's budget amendment on this issue myself.
If my Socialist Council Office's legislation to make Seattle a sanctuary city for abortion rights passes.
And if you have had an abortion or are an abortion doctor or other care provider, come to Seattle.
If you can make it here, the warrant for your arrest will not go away, but police in Seattle will be instructed to not act on that warrant.
I urge council members and the mayor to support this urgently needed protection against draconian anti-abortion laws and to fully fund access to abortion and I urge the governor and the state legislature to do the same.
Now it is my pleasure to invite Dr. Amy Zhang, member of the resident and fellow physicians union at the University of Washington.
Thank you so much for having me today.
So I'm the outgoing president of the Resident and Fellow Physician Union Northwest.
Like many of you, I was very disappointed and shocked and angered this morning when I learned about the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
And as a physician, as a human being, and as a mother, I want to say that abortion care is essential health care.
It is life-saving health care for women, for girls, and for children everywhere.
About a third of American women will have an abortion in their lifetime.
A large proportion of these women are already mothers.
They care about their children and they're doing this for their children.
Many people who choose to have abortions are people who are doing it in order to save their own lives.
Pregnancy and childbirth is one of the most dangerous things that a girl or a woman may go through in their lifetime.
And part of the reason why I feel so strongly about this is because I have important members of my family who I love very much who would not be here today, who would no longer be in my life if abortion care were not legal and accessible for them.
So once again, I want to reiterate, I think this legislation is very important because I think abortion care is essential health care.
I don't think this should be a matter of politics.
And I think necessary health care should be available, accessible and affordable and safe for everyone who needs it.
Thank you.
Thank you Dr. Zhang for affirming as a medical care provider yourself that necessary healthcare should be available for everybody.
I now have the pleasure of inviting Sam Sumter, President of UAW 4121 on the University of Washington.
Thank you.
As Shama mentioned, I am the president of UAW 4121 at the University of Washington, and I'm here today as a union member and as part of the labor movement.
Reproductive rights are workers' rights, and it's important and critical that we recognize them as such.
Today's ruling is really an assault on working people, and it has disproportionate impacts on communities who are already worst impacted by many of the other things that are going on in this country right now, including people of color, including people in low-income communities, including queer and trans folks.
And this is a huge assault, as Amy said, on basic health care rights.
I'm also originally from Idaho and so this hits especially personal for me, I have family and friends who are still there.
And we have to show up for each other in solidarity.
And that is why this legislation is so important, because this isn't just about any single one of us.
It's about how this affects our communities as a whole.
It's about basic bodily autonomy.
It is not just about abortion on its own.
It's about all of the consequences that can come from this.
It's about all of the connections with assaults on trans youth, on trans people in general, that are increasing across the country.
And it is so important that we are able to come together as a community and do the action that we know needs to happen to protect each other and to ensure that we all have the basic health care and the basic rights that we deserve.
And it's also important, adding on to that, that we not only demand full and free access to abortion, but a broad vision, an encompassing vision of reproductive justice, including fully accessible and free healthcare, including Medicare for All, full funding for reproductive clinics, full access to contraception, and other aspects of reproductive health.
We also have to hit the streets and take mass collective action.
That's the only way that we will be able to win the kind of world that we need.
We have to build that mass coalition between labor, between community, and we have to take action now.
It can't wait.
Too many people are struggling and too many people are going to start suffering immediately.
I would also very much encourage everyone in Seattle to join a rally tonight at 5pm at the federal building to participate in taking this action right now.
It also is not going to just be today, it has to be much longer than today that we're taking action and coming together in solidarity.
And I also just want to say that regardless of today's decision, the fight for reproductive justice is not over, and we can and should do what we need to win reproductive justice very comprehensively for everyone.
Thank you.
Thanks so much, Sam, for that moving testimonial and reminder of why working class people and the labor movement need to build solidarity across state lines.
And indeed, it has to be a global and international movement for reproductive justice, for the rights of women, queer, and all oppressed people.
And now I would like to invite Emily MacArthur, who is a representative of Socialist Alternative.
My name is Emily MacArthur.
I'm a member of Socialist Alternative, and I'm a socialist feminist.
Today, I'm honored to stand here shoulder to shoulder with Socialist City Councilmember Shama Sawant and progressive fighting unions like UAW and RFPU.
We come together to organize and to fight back, but we have to be clear.
It's no longer a defensive fight.
It's an offensive one.
We have to gain back the ground that we have lost today.
And these losses have happened while the Democratic Party sits on the sidelines.
From the polls showing 70% of Americans support the protections for abortion and a bodily autonomy Roe provided, to mass rallies and marches spanning not just the last few months, but decades, the Democratic Party has had the popular basis to wage a real fight to codify Roe.
Instead, they've used it as a political football, year after year, and made hollow promises that never come to fruition, despite having control of Congress and the White House again and again.
The cost of this betrayal will be paid by working class women and pregnant people who now live in states where either abortion will be completely out of reach, or will come at the extreme cost of taking several days off work to travel to access one.
This overturn of Roe has also opened the door for further attacks on the most vulnerable, from the rollback of gay marriage to overturning the right for interracial marriage.
And for anyone who thinks that this isn't the case, just look at the shocking and barbaric attacks being carried out against trans and non-binary kids across the country.
While the right wing is gearing up for further attacks, Democratic Party Girl Boss-in-Chief Hillary Clinton says, quote, the transgender debate should not be a priority for the Democrats.
It's shameful.
This craven inaction has a brutal cost.
And that's why it's so important that we are here today with Socialist City Councilmember Shama Sawant announcing this fighting legislation.
It's not enough to say that abortions are illegal in Washington.
We'll be fine.
We need to do more for the one half of all people of productive age in this country who now live in a state where abortion is illegal.
This legislation commits to making Seattle a sanctuary city for people seeking abortions and for those providing them.
Throughout history, working people have had to defy unjust laws to gain the right to protest, to strike, to defy Jim Crow, and to dismantle institutional sexism.
Today is no different.
But importantly, this resistance needs to be on a massed, organized scale and not just on an individualized basis.
Council Member Sawant is also crucially committing to fighting for using public funds to cover abortions for those in need.
This is a direct repudiation of the reactionary Hyde Amendment, which was supported by the Democrats, including Joe Biden, and has been renewed again and again with bipartisan support.
Importantly, it takes the burden of funding off of mutual aid that is by its nature comes from working people whose funds are desperately overstretched as it is.
Funding for abortions should come instead from expanding the Amazon tax our movement won in 2020. Councilmember Sawant's leadership today provides an alternate path.
Working people, women, LGBTQ people, people of color, we deserve a party that takes decisive action in moments of crisis.
We are increasingly in a constant moment of crisis, from the pandemic, to inflation, to the climate, to housing, to racist police violence, and now basic access to healthcare.
And the Democrats have proven that they have no interest in providing that lead, while one independent socialist has been on the cutting edge of these fights time and again.
Tonight at 5 p.m.
at the Federal Building, 915 2nd Avenue, Socialist Alternative and Councilmember Sawant will join a coalition of unions, community groups, and socialists saying, we won't go back.
This rally and similar actions across the country, which Socialist Alternative is calling or joining in, can act as a kicking off point for a desperately needed movement, which is independent of the Democratic Party and the liberal NGOs.
Such a movement needs democratic structures to discuss and decide demands, tactics and strategy.
We saw through our collective experience in the largest protest in U.S. history in the 2020 Movement for Black Lives that this heroic sacrifice and being on the streets day after day, it won't be enough.
We need to learn the lessons of the historic feminist movement in Latin America and Ireland, which in the last few years have won gains on abortion through mass democratic struggle in the streets and not through a legalistic approach.
We'll need an escalating plan of action from our unions, from our schools, from our communities to build the pressure to win first this important sanctuary city legislation, but then crucially to win a full socialist feminist agenda, including overturning the filibuster to codify Roe, Medicare for All with fully funded reproductive care and gender-affirming care, universal child care, a mass expansion of high-quality union-built social housing, and nationalizing the formula industry to ensure the safety of families over the profits of corporations.
But to win, we can't wait.
We need to rebuild a fighting feminist movement, and I appeal for you to join us.
Thank you.
Those are our speakers.
If media have questions about the legislation or questions for our fellow speakers, please let me know.
Can I speak too?
Because I'm against what you're talking about.
Can I speak too?
Where is freedom of speech?
Different opinion.
In the absence of any questions from the media, I'll just mention one thing.
In relation to the legislation that my office has proposed, just to clarify, there's two pieces of legislation that we're proposing.
One will come later when the city begins its budget deliberations.
That would be a people's budget amendment to the city budget to make sure that all abortion care and abortion-related care is fully funded.
as Emily MacArthur pointed out, by expanding the Amazon tax or by introducing other taxes on big corporations and the wealthy and making sure that that abortion care is available to anybody who seeks it, whether you live in Seattle already or not.
But more immediately, the legislation that my office is putting forward is for an abortion sanctuary city.
And I wanted to point out to the media that actually this is not nothing new.
If you recall in 2003 the city's voters passed initiative 75 which was meant to for uh...
making sure that the city's police paid the lowest priority attention to marijuana related prosecution and that initiative when it took effect it was highly successful i'm reading from a stranger article in two thousand five that pointed out that there was a sixty seven percent reduction in arrests prosecutions and jail sentences connected to marijuana use and that was in the period preceding the statewide initiative that then legalized all marijuana use.
So, you know, I mentioned that to point out that in reality, the Democrats on the city council have zero, zero excuses to not vote yes on this legislation because it's nothing new.
It's been done before for marijuana and it played a role in helping towards marijuana legalization.
This time the case, if anything, is even more compelling because we are talking about human lives, especially those who are the most oppressed.
So I urge the City Council to vote yes on this legislation.
If you are interested in co-sponsoring, I invite you to co-sponsor this legislation with me.
And most importantly, I invite you to fight alongside me for the People's Budget Amendment to fully fund abortion-related care.
But most importantly, it is up to working people and the rank and file of the labor movement and progressive labor and social justice leaders to make sure that the City Council here and the Democrats on the City Council do the right thing and vote yes on this legislation.
Thank you.