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NBA Finals, Game Five:

Taking the Floor to Rise Up for Abortion Rights

Xochitl and Magda after they disrupted Game 5 of NBA finals, protesting for abortion rights.

 

Two members of the Revolution Club, Xochitl and Magda, courageously raised banners of “Rise Up for Abortion Rights” and “End Roe? Hell No!” Photo: Special to revcom.us   

Two members of the Revolution Club, Xochitl and Magda, courageously raised banners of “Rise Up for Abortion Rights” and “End Roe? Hell No!” on the floor of the arena during the fifth game of the NBA finals in San Francisco. This was only days before the Supreme Court dropped their decision ending abortion rights. They were immediately slammed by security and SFPD, brutally dragged off the court, choked, and handcuffed, and Xochitl was injected with a sedative by the Fire Department while tied to a gurney!

The injection of sedatives in people under the control of police and emergency personnel is a common practice in San Francisco (and it seems in other cities—in a notorious case, Elijah McClain died in Aurora, Colorado after such an injection). For the authorities to use sedative injections against nonviolent political protesters is an extreme violation of basic rights.

#RiseUp4AbortionRights activists displayed banner & called on people at #Game5 of the #NBAfinals to get off the sidelines and take a stand for abortion rights. They were viciously assaulted for this civil disobedience action But they “would do it again in a heartbeat!” Hear why… @Rise4AbortionSF

The day after the event, Xochitl wrote: "It was a daunting action to go in the middle of the massive event. But if you knew the Supreme Court was in a single stroke going to enslave women? What should you do? I imagined the horrific violence of a teenager being forced against her will to give birth, and I walked towards the court.” And while in police custody, Xochitl sent a message citing the famous words of Mario Savio, a student leader in the 1960s; when the “operation of the machine” of this system “becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart... you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus—and you’ve got to make it stop.”

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The fact that the Supreme Court has now overturned Roe makes the stakes even higher and the need for a wide range of actions, with the aim of bringing forward truly massive opposition, all the more important. On one side, passionate fighters for women’s basic rights (and in the case of these two members of the Revolution Club, for the emancipation of humanity) are on a mission to mobilize society to fight—on the other side, wanton brutality and viciousness by the authorities and the armed enforcers of this system. And as Magda put it, those haters (see here and here) who are attacking Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights and Bob Avakian are “blindly (or not so blindly) doing the work of the system… Everyone who opposes the state subjugation of women represented by the overturn of Roe v. Wade needs to be united in this critical moment in mass, nonviolent, sustained protest that communicates that we resoundingly refuse to accept this illegitimate decision and we will bring society to a halt.” She also said that one of the things that enabled her to step up at the NBA finals “was being invited to envision a new society, in the new communism, without the sadistic patriarchal oppression of women.”

What the authorities did to Xochitl and Magda cannot be allowed to stand. They are working on plans to take legal action against the city, as an important part of the overall fight for abortion rights and for revolution. 

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From the genocide in Gaza, to the growing threat of world war between nuclear powers, to escalating environmental devastation… the capitalist-imperialist system ruling over us is a horror for billions around the world and is tearing up the fabric of life on earth. Now the all-out battle within the U.S. ruling class, between fascist Republicans and war criminal Democrats, is coming to a head—likely during, or before, the coming elections—ripping society apart unlike anything since the Civil War. 

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