Transcript
provided by Politico
and below.
Some
of you may remember that earlier this year, Republicans shut me out of a
hearing on contraception. In fact, on that panel, they didn't hear from a
single woman, even though they were debating an issue that affects nearly every
woman. Because it happened in Congress, people noticed. But it happens all the
time. Many women are shut out and silenced. So while I'm honored to be standing
at this podium, it easily could have been any one of you. I'm here because I
spoke out, and this November, each of us must do the same.
During
this campaign, we've heard about the two profoundly different futures that
could await women—and how one of those futures looks like an offensive,
obsolete relic of our past. Warnings of that future are not distractions.
They're not imagined. That future could be real.
In
that America, your new president could be a man who stands by when a public
figure tries to silence a private citizen with hateful slurs. Who won't stand
up to the slurs, or to any of the extreme, bigoted voices in his own party. It
would be an America in which you have a new vice president who co-sponsored a
bill that would allow pregnant women to die preventable deaths in our emergency
rooms. An America in which states humiliate women by forcing us to endure
invasive ultrasounds we don't want and our doctors say we don't need. An
America in which access to birth control is controlled by people who will never
use it; in which politicians redefine rape so survivors are victimized all over
again; in which someone decides which domestic violence victims deserve help,
and which don't. We know what this America would look like. In a few short
months, it's the America we could be. But it's not the America we should be.
It's not who we are.
We've
also seen another future we could choose. First of all, we'd have the right to
choose. It's an America in which no one can charge us more than men for the
exact same health insurance; in which no one can deny us affordable access to
the cancer screenings that could save our lives; in which we decide when to
start our families. An America in which our president, when he hears a young
woman has been verbally attacked, thinks of his daughters—not his delegates or
donors—and stands with all women. And strangers come together, reach out and
lift her up. And then, instead of trying to silence her, you invite me here—and
give me a microphone—to amplify our voice. That's the difference.
Over
the last six months, I've seen what these two futures look like. And six months
from now, we'll all be living in one, or the other. But only one. A country
where our president either has our back or turns his back; a country that
honors our foremothers by moving us forward, or one that forces our generation
to re-fight the battles they already won; a country where we mean it when we
talk about personal freedom, or one where that freedom doesn't apply to our
bodies and our voices.
We
talk often about choice. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to choose.
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