Skip to main content

San Francisco Protest:

Handmaids Shake Up St. Mary’s Cathedral

All out for March 8 International Women’s Day!

"handmaids" in church

 

February 27—Shortly after 11 am, six Handmaids crossed the plaza of St. Mary’s Cathedral, the church of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and entered during Sunday Mass. They made their way through ushers who tried to stop them, and walked right up to the front and stood facing the congregation, holding up signs that said, “Abortion On Demand And Without Apology!” and “Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement!” One Handmaid spoke out, indicting the Catholic church for thousands of years of oppressing women and calling out Archbishop Cordileone, a zealous public crusader against abortion rights, LBGTQ rights, and contraception. While church security tried to restore order and to force the Handmaids out, an anti-abortion activist popped up and started screaming through a bullhorn in the middle of the cathedral the lie that fetuses are babies. The Handmaids slowly walked out, chanting loud and clear, "Without this Basic Right, Women Can’t Be Free! Abortion on Demand and Without Apology!”

RiseUp4AbortionRights took to the streets in civil disobedience for abortion rights.

People lined up holding signs and chanting, blocking traffic for 15 to 20 minutes in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral.    Photo: revcom

See also:

Speak-out on Abortion Rights Followed by Arrests at New York Cathedral

POWERFUL TESTIMONY, COURAGEOUS ACTION… AND MOVING NOW TO ORGANIZE FOR INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

A speak-out for abortion rights was held on the sidewalk in front of the church—old and young exposed the dire situation for women before Roe v. Wade, and warned against the looming danger of all-around imposition of fascism, and urged people to take to the streets in massive numbers. They called for everyone to join in nationwide protests on March 8, International Women’s Day, and in the SF area to come to Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley at 12 noon that day. A statement was read from the organization Oysan (of Iranian and Afghan women), which said in part: “Our struggle, in Iran and Afghanistan is linked together with the struggle of women in the United States and women all around the world against patriarchy and all other forms of oppression and for bringing forward a just world and the emancipation of the whole of humanity.”

March 8, International Women's Day, RiseUp4AbortionRights logo

 

A high school student and member of the Revolution Club spoke bitterly about the oppression and hypocrisy of the church, confronting the pro-life Dark Ages morality with “answer me, is that love?” and called for revolution against the system of capitalism-imperialism. A member of the Raging Grannies, and an organizer for March 8, told of life for young women before Roe v. Wade:  women disappearing when they were in high school, forced to give birth in shame. Several high school students came from more than 50 miles away to attend.  

See also:

The event was organized by an ad hoc grouping of people who have been planning for the Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights protest on March 8. It got positive coverage from a local TV news station and a local news radio station. A TikTok made by one of the organizers received over 50k views. 

DONATE to revcom.us. 
DONATE to the revolution.

DONATE

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.

Bob Avakian (BA), revolutionary leader and author of the new communism, has developed a strategy to prepare for and make revolution. He’s scientifically analyzed that this is a rare time when an actual revolution has become more possible, and has laid out the sweeping vision, solid foundation and concrete blueprint for “what comes next,” in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

The website revcom.us follows and applies that leadership and is essential to all this. We post new materials from BA and curate his whole body of work. We apply the science he’s developed to analyze and expose every key event in society, every week. Revcom.us posts BA’s timely leadership for the revcoms (revolutionary communists), including his social media posts which break this down for people every week and sometimes more. We act as a guiding and connecting hub for the growing revcom movement nationwide: not just showing what’s being done, but going into what’s right and what’s wrong and rapidly learning—and recruiting new people into what has to be a rapidly growing force.

Put it this way: there will be no revolution unless this website not only “keeps going” but goes up to a whole different level!

So what should you give to make 2024 our year—a year of revolution?
Everything you possibly can!
DONATE NOW to revcom.us and get with BA and the revcoms!

Your donations contribute to:

  • Promotion of BA on social media and the Bob Avakian Interviews on The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show
  • Strengthen revcom.us as an accessible, secure, robust website able to rise to the challenge of meeting the extraordinary demands of navigating the storms and preparing for revolution in this pivotal, unprecedented year
  • Fund revcoms to travel to national “hotspots,” where extreme contradictions are pulling apart the fabric of this country and creating the possibility of wrenching an actual revolution out of this intensifying situation
  • Expand the reach and coverage of revcom.us
  • Printing and distribution of key Revcom materials including the Declaration “WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM” and the Proclamation, “WE ARE THE REVCOMS (Revolutionary Communists)”

More ways to donate

DONATE