Lizzie Fletcher: “I join my Democratic colleagues in opposing, on the strongest terms, all forms of political violence. That is something…”

“I join my Democratic colleagues in opposing, on the strongest terms, all forms of political violence. That is something that this resolution fails to do. This resolution fails to acknowledge decades of well-documented violence against reproductive healthcare providers in this country. In failing to do so, it fails us all. I have seen that violence firsthand. More than 30 years ago, when I was a teenager, I stood in defense of our local Planned Parenthood as anti-abortion protesters tried to chain themselves to the doors to prevent women from going in not only to get abortion care but to get their Pap smears, their birth control, HIV tests, and other services. A few years later, a well-known anti-abortion activist drove a van through the same door of that same Planned Parenthood. Like I said, I welcome the opportunity to vote on legislation that condemns all forms of political violence, but the resolution's purposeful omission of abortion providers and patients, and what that suggests, is why I am voting ``no'' today, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.”