Reproductive justice advocates plan sit-in protest blasting Nancy Pelosi's "faux feminism"

Washington DC - Activists are planning a Thursday sit-in at the congressional office of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to protest her ostensible support for reproductive freedom while backing Israel's assault on Gaza.

California Democrat Nancy Pelosi has been slammed for supporting domestic reproductive rights while failing to take a stand Palestinian freedoms under a US-backed Israeli assault.
California Democrat Nancy Pelosi has been slammed for supporting domestic reproductive rights while failing to take a stand Palestinian freedoms under a US-backed Israeli assault.  © Kevin Dietsch / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP

The group is set to meet outside the California Democrat's office at 10AM, before moving to DC House delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's office at noon.

The action, organized by feminist anti-war organization CODEPINK, takes place one day before International Women's Day, as Biden prepares to deliver his State of the Union address.

Activists say they are targeting Pelosi because she claims to support women's rights and reproductive justice and has the power to effect change within the Democratic Party.

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Instead, CODEPINK says "faux feminists" like Pelosi are creating a "reproductive justice nightmare" in Palestine.

"The blood is on her hands," CODEPINK co-founder Jodie Evans said in a press release. "It is horrific to walk through these halls of Congress and see women raising the flag of reproductive rights yet refusing to say anything about the devastating reproductive crisis the genocide in Gaza is causing women."

Conditions grave for Palestinian women and children

A Palestinian woman holding a child flees following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
A Palestinian woman holding a child flees following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.  © MOHAMMED ABED / AFP

Women and children are suffering at alarming rates in Palestine amid Israel's five-month siege on Gaza and decades of apartheid oppression.

The death toll in Gaza over the last five months has surpassed 30,800 people, most of them women and children.

Miscarriages are up by 300% in Gaza with extreme barriers to accessing prenatal and postnatal care and medicine.

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Israeli bombs destroyed the Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association as a blockade on medical supplies has forced some women to have C-sections without anesthetic.

Even before October 7, around 94,000 Palestinian women lacked access to sexual and reproductive health services, according to the United Nations Population Fund.

One in 10 Palestinian women are forced to give birth in unsafe and sometimes fatal conditions due to delays at Israeli military checkpoints, which may prevent them from reaching hospitals in time.

Pelosi is failing the growing number of Americans who are demanding a permanent ceasefire and an end to US weapons transfers to Israel.

Cover photo: Kevin Dietsch / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via AFP

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