Video: In Acceptance Speech for Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award, Adele McClure speaks about the birth of her daughter.

Great job by Virginia del. Adele McClure – winner of the 12th annual Gabrielle Giffords Rising Star Award – speaks recently in the gala of Emily's List 2025! See below for a video and a transcript of her speech, which (her own health as a teenager – painfully – to her daughter “born a few days before the presidential elections last year”) and the political (and then another thought arrived, sharper, sharper than any contraction. I can endure any fight to make it better. “) “Estonishing star”, del. Adele McClure while fighting to make the world better for her little daughter – and for all of us!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJRK_EVUZE

“What an enormous honor to meet only one of my heroes, the honorable Gabrielle Giffords.

Words cannot begin to express the gratitude that I feel for you, for Emily's list and for my fellow candidates. They are fearless architects of changes, brilliant, brave and constantly increasing. It is a great honor for me to share this moment with them.

And less than a year ago I prepared to give birth to my daughter. (Audience cheers) (applauded the audience) and I am so happy to be here. When I think of Gabrielle Giffords, I think of strength, the kind of strength and courage it takes to rise after unthinkable, through pain and to turn it into the purpose of transforming strength and action. And then I look around all of you in this room, my mother. (Audience cheers) (applauded the audience), whose grit and grace have shaped every fiber of who I am. I am deeply moved by the amount of power packs who look back.

And when I was a young girl, I could never have imagined it. I grew up in deep poverty and fought for survival. I saw how my mother did backbreak work and worked several jobs to make sure I had a chance of fighting. My mother protected us with everything she had. This type of strength not only increased me, it saved me. It is carved into my DNA. It led me through need and the halls of the Virginia Capitol. (Audience cheers) (applauded the audience)

This trip was not just mine. It is based on generations of resilience. I am the granddaughter of a Sharecropper who is descended and enslaved by people in Virginia, and now I serve in the Virginia House of Delegates, the oldest continuous legislative authority in the western hemisphere. (Audience cheers) (applauded) This is not just progress, it is a promise that you should never define how far you can get up.

But this trip almost ended before it started. I was 17 years old. I have campaigned for a routine examination, the type of visit that you would miss without health care. But thanks to Medicaid, I was there. This visit saved my life. (Applauding the audience) Doctors discovered cancer cells, and because I had access to care, I received the life -saving reproductive operation that I needed. I would not have known it without this access. I would not have been treated and would not be in front of you today. And after this operation, at the age of 17, I lived with the calm fear that I may never have children. When my daughter came to this world, this moment was not only miraculous, it was revolutionary. (Acts applauded) A victory by the guideline, access and the type of care that every single person earns. (Applauden) (audience cheers)

Keep my daughter my existence for the first time. (Audience laughs) nine pounds, an ounce. (Audience cheers) I let myself be unchanged forever. This kind of pain that collapses time, opens you, body and soul, and the kind of pain that strips away everything you thought for yourself and forces you to meet the most powerful, most violent version of yourself. And then silence. An unprecedented feeling of peace hurried over me when she was born. Time slowed down. The chaos faded. And I held my daughter in my arms and there was nothing else, only her, my perfect girl. And at that moment I knew that I would do everything to protect them.

And then another thought hit me, sharper than any contraction. In what kind of world did I bring you into? My daughter was born just a few days before the presidential election last year. Our bodies are political battlefields to a country in which our rights are fragile, our future are negotiable. So I made a decision both as a legislator and as a brand new mother. If I can endure this pain to bring it into this world, I can endure every fight to do it better. (Applauden) (audience cheers)

And this year is this fight in Virginia. (Applauding the audience) (audience cheers) Virginia is not just my home, but the front for all of us. It is a Bellwether, a demonstrative floor. What happens over this river will influence the 2026 midterm and the future of this country. (Acts applauded) We are the last southern state that holds the line to reproductive freedom, and this year Virginia will choose her first governor in history. (Audience cheers) (applauded the audience), so that the operations could not be higher. And the two decisions could not be more different. Because again we stare two radically other futures for our daughters. I can't do that alone. Abigail Spanberger can't do it alone. (Audience cheers) (audience applauded) All 100 seats of the Delegate House are available, and we need every single voice, every hand, every person in this room.

So I will contact many of them in the coming days. (Audience laughs) When I call, please get off. And if I don't have your number, please make sure that I end it tonight. (Audience laughs) (audience cheers) (audience applauded) Thank you. Because I am not just calling you for help, I call you in the fight, into history because movements are not built up by moments. They are built by people who rise when it is most important. The fight is not only political, but personally. It's about legacy. It is about the future that we refuse to surrender. It is about the world we ask for our daughters, our communities and ourselves. It is about the unstoppable strength when we become and resurrect as one. We are not just witnesses at that moment, we are the moment. We are the past, present and future of this movement.

And we are not here to politely type the glass ceilings. We are here to break them, to collect the shards with their bare hands and to build something unbreakable for the next generation, to continue and climb higher than we ever could. (Audience cheers) (applauded) We are women in fire, in grace, in pain and purpose. We have worn stresses that most never see. We are faced with court proceedings that would break others and we did it with unshakable determination. Let the world take note. We won't twitch together. We won't break. We won't return, not now, not ever until every door is open, every voice can be heard, every right is protected because pain? Pain is only the start of our strength. (Audience cheers) (applauded) The future begins now. The fight begins now. Let it be solved now. God helps everyone who dares to stand in the way. (Audience cheers) (applauded) “