Global Solidarity: TEA Fund’s Commitment to Liberation and Justice

Texas Equal Access Fund, having reflected on our prior statements, recognizes the need for a more informed stance on global injustices, including the tragic situations in Gaza and beyond. After a period of collective learning among our staff and board, we now present a statement that better represents our understanding and commitment to advocacy. The Texas Equal Access Fund joins in the call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the genocide, and an end to the occupation. As an abortion fund whose values are centered on reproductive justice, we believe that ceasefire is a reproductive justice issue.

In our journey toward advocating for reproductive justice, we acknowledge that the issue of ceasefire is intertwined with global injustices, including other genocides occurring around the world, such as in Congo, Myanmar, Tibet, East Turkestan China, and Sudan. These crises, along with the violence in Gaza, underline the urgency of our advocacy for peace, liberation, and reproductive justice across all regions facing conflict and oppression.

We are witnessing a genocide. As we continue to witness the horrors of Israel’s genocidal campaign unfold in Gaza, with the financial and military weaponry backing of the US, we know it’s more important than ever that we organize to demand an immediate ceasefire and to build a movement against imperialism, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hatred, and antisemitism. Our calls for peace are also a call for liberation because there can be no peace without liberation. There can be no peace while the settlements remain. We are committed to supporting decolonization, and Indigenous movements that demand Land Back.

As of mid-January, over 17,000 Palestinians, including over 7,000 children, have been killed since October 7. According to the UN, this is the deadliest conflict for children in current times. This is a war on Palestinians and it is a reproductive injustice. We are horrified by the bombings of hospitals, schools, mosques, and universities. The destruction of these institutions immediately impacts critical support systems and availability of medical care for residents in Gaza. With an estimated 50,000 pregnant people in Gaza, and a health care system in collapse, maternal and infant deaths are occurring at increasing rates. Our commitment to social justice is why we must speak up and demand a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine. We know that reproductive justice can never exist under settler colonialism, military occupation, imprisonment, and apartheid.

As people living in the heart of the US empire we understand that we have an obligation to speak out against our government’s historical and unending funding for Israel’s weapons and militarism. Having the deep personal experience of living in a settler colonial nation – we must always remember that we work on stolen land. Like Palestinians, Indigenous people here faced genocide, were forced onto reservations, and are still right now fighting for Land Back. Like Indigenous people in the US, Palestinians deserve to live with dignity, free to move throughout their land, and exist without constant surveillance and oppression. Our solidarity is guided by a belief in collective liberation and the idea that our liberation is tied to the liberation of others.

As Texans, we must also decry the fact that many of the bombs being dropped in Gaza are built by weapons companies in north Texas.

BLU-109 “bunker busting” bombs are made by General Dynamics at a facility in Garland, TX.
Elbit systems is the largest Israeli weapons company. They produce 85% of the

Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) land based weapons and 85% of their drones. Their US headquarters is in Fort Worth, TX.

Lockheed Martin in Fort Worth, TX was also awarded DoD contracts to make weapons and military supplies for Israel.

We know that the same corporations surveilling border communities here in the US are the same ones who profit off the surveillance of Palestinans. We know that the policing strategies and surveillance tactics used against Palestinans are exported around the world to oppress Black and Brown communities, including specifically in Texas where members of law enforcement are sent to Israel to receive training from the IDF. We know that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott – who fought to eliminate abortion access in our state, continually harasses abortion funds, and dismisses the need to expand healthcare access for Texas residents or address the high maternal mortality rate – continues to offer “complete and total support” to Israel, including investing state money and prohibiting state agencies to purchase goods from the Gaza Strip.

People are facing a tremendous amount of backlash for speaking out against the genocide because there is a tremendous amount of power in people speaking out. We have been told that we risk our mission of funding abortions for Texans if we speak out for a ceasefire. We understand there are risks to demanding an end to the genocide, but the risk of staying silent is far greater. Any consequence we may face for demanding a ceasefire now and an end to occupation is nothing when compared to the risks that Palestinians face just to live another hour. If we stand for reproductive justice in Texas, then we must stand for it in Palestine. And there is no reproductive justice in Palestine without a ceasefire and an end to the occupation.

Ceasefire now

Free Palestine

End the Occupation