HUMANITY MATTERS

Quick facts

Record: House Floor
Section type: Floor speeches
Chamber: House
Date: September 1, 2026
Congress: 119th Congress
Why this source matters: This section came from the House floor portion of the record.

Readable version of the official text

Ms. STEVENS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. STEVENS. Mr. Speaker, I rise today after returning this morning from Israel convinced of something simple: We do not have to choose whose humanity matters.

I stood at the Nova Festival site where young people went to dance

and 364 never came home.

I walked through Kibbutz Kfar Aza and saw the remains of bloodshed

and attacks on peaceful people.

I sat across from people who survived captivity and somehow found the

courage to tell us what it means to come home.

Their humanity matters.

I also met World Central Kitchen workers feeding Palestinian families

in Gaza, and at Kerem Shalom, I saw the urgent work of getting food and medicine to innocent people trapped in a war they did not choose.

Their humanity matters too.

At Hadassah Medical Center, I saw perhaps the clearest reminder of

all: Jewish and Arab doctors and nurses working side by side to save whoever comes through the door, because medicine does not ask who you choose whose life is worth saving. Every life is worth saving and neither should humanity.