Political Quotes

On the recordJuly 21, 2025
I rise to condemn the cruelty of the Hyde Amendment and reintroduce the EACH Act to end it once and for all. It is 2025. In 1976, when I was a mere 2 years old, a Congressman from Chicago was livid at the thought that a woman could be in control of her own body, especially a Black or Brown woman. So he came to this floor and put forward an amendment with a simple, cruel aim to ban as many people as he could from getting abortion care. With that robotic precision, this institution has rubber-stamped this amendment in budget after budget. The Hyde Amendment denies abortion care to patients who receive their care through Medicaid, CHIP, and other government programs. Once in my lifetime, we defeated this amendment in the House, a testament to activists, organizers, and my mentor, Congresswoman Barbara Lee. Mr. Speaker, in my lifetime, we will defeat it once and for all because everyone deserves access to fundamental healthcare, and that is exactly what abortion care is. No man, no king, and no coward should come between us and our bodies.
Said by
Ayanna Pressley
Democratic · Massachusetts

Editor's note · Context

Condemning the Hyde Amendment and advocating for the EACH Act during a House floor speech.

Share

More from Ayanna Pressley

Jul 17, 2026

Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. And now he’s trying to rig this year’s election with the SAVE America Act to make it harder to vote for millions of women, veterans, rural folks, & voters of color.

foxnews.com
May 4, 2025

should NOT be seizing people's hard-earned wages, tax refunds, and Social Security checks.

commondreams.org
Aug 2, 2026

We should not have any company or contractor operating without a full accounting of their safety record.

propublica.org
Jun 17, 2026

The IDF soldiers 'terrorized [Safi's] family' when they arrested her.

jpost.com

Other voices in this conversation