San Francisco: Spirited Counter-Protest Against the “Walk of Lies”

January 25, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

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From a correspondent:

January 24—Every year, tens of thousands of anti-abortion forces bused in from as far away as Texas flood the streets of San Francisco in their yearly “Walk for Life,” a misogynous (woman-hating) parade organized by a network of Catholic churches aimed at criminalizing abortion and imposing forced motherhood on women. This year, Stop Patriarchy’s call to STAND UP for abortion rights and to CONFRONT & DEFEAT the war on women infused the counter-protest by Stop Patriarchy, the Bay Area Revolution Club, and others with a fighting spirit, making the whole afternoon a very two-sided battle.

As the anti-abortion forces massed in Civic Center, about 200 people gathered a few blocks away, at Powell and Market. Our banners read “Forced Motherhood Is Female Enslavement,” “Abortion On Demand and Without Apology,” and “Unleash the Fury of Women as a Mighty Force for Revolution.” Many people brought their own signs, like “another man for women’s right to choose” and “An egg is not a Chicken. A fetus is not a Baby.” Others carried coat hangers, some of them straightened grotesquely like those once commonly used for illegal abortions.

The woman-haters were much more aggressive than in years past, perhaps after hearing of Stop Patriarchy’s protests in Washington, DC, and Oakland. When we arrived to confront them, they already had squads of anti-abortion youth carrying signs saying “I am the Pro-Life Generation” and huge signs with new slogans like “pregnancy resources on demand” lined up right up along the street where counter-protesters usually stand. The police already had the two sides separated by barricades.

San Francisco: Taking an Unapologetic Stand for Abortion

This is from a correspondence sent to revcom.us/Revolution:

This [the actions of the anti-abortionists and the police] did not dampen any spirits. As we marched down Market Street, groups of people saw us coming and cheered. It was clear that the average passerby on the street that day was disturbed by the wave upon wave of woman haters, and we were met on almost every block by people clapping, cheering us on, and joining in. We marched to the foot of Market Street and had a die-in, chanting, “When abortion is illegal, women die!” and then jumping up to, “Rise up for the women of the world, for the women of the world, rise up!!” The police continued to try to control us and block us into a small space while letting the anti-abortion people walk freely anywhere they wanted. But our certitude was strong and it was clear that most of the anti-abortion people were just not used to such an unapologetic stand for abortion.

Soon we went a few blocks up to Chelsea Manning Plaza [Justin Herman Plaza] and held a speak-out. One woman said she was there for her niece, who had gotten pregnant, was denied an abortion, called a whore, and rejected by her family. Another woman said she was there for her mother, who had an abortion when she was 16 years old and still to this day is treated as a pariah by her family. Both of these women had great determination and love for their family member who had experienced such hate from other family members. A group of five teenagers had traveled from Sacramento after hearing on the radio that this anti-woman march was happening, and came looking for who was standing up to them and found us. About 20 college students, revolutionaries, and activists had come up from LA because they refused to see this “March for Enslavement” go down without joining and strengthening the fight against it. A nurse who provided abortions in 1965 (before it was legal) said, “We do not support the killing of babies, because fetuses are not babies.” Several people said they were going about their business that day, on the way to get a haircut, meet a friend, or do some shopping, saw either the March for “Life” or the raucous and fiery counter-protest, and ditched their plans to join the fight. Several people spoke to the whole war on women, including harassment, rape and sexual assault, and violent and degrading pornography, that we can and should reject and fight to end, building up a new culture and a movement that brings in everyone with a desire to see the war on women defeated once and for all.

But this only further outraged those who turned out to support women’s fundamental rights. A powerful rally was held, with speeches by Sunsara Taylor of Stop Patriarchy and writer for revcom.us/Revolution newspaper; Carl Dix of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA; other representatives of Stop Patriarchy; and women who wanted to tell the world why they supported abortion rights. During one of the rally/speak-outs held that day, one young woman said she was there because her mother had been forced to go to Mexico to get an illegal abortion—”what if she had died, leaving her three children without her?”

Then, as the “Walk of Lies” came by, we took off marching ahead of them. People made several spirited pushes out into the street—trying to step right in front of the antis with banners and large portraits of women who had died because of not having access to abortion. But police on foot, motorcycles, and bicycles aggressively threatened or attacked and physically pushed people back onto the sidewalk, sometimes pushing people to the ground. One woman, a staffer at Revolution Books, was grabbed, violently thrown to the ground, and then arrested.

Meanwhile, the anti-abortion forces had a more belligerent tone; the phalanxes of anti-abortion youth rushed down the sidewalks with their signs, trying to line the streets. They chanted “babies, babies, babies, babies.” At several points the main body of marchers, which is usually well away from pro-choice protesters, came right near the sidewalk. Later, on social media, they bragged about working with the police to stop the “pro-aborts.”

But all this further energized—and outraged—our counter-march to defend women’s basic rights. We marched alongside their parade for women’s enslavement, chanting and holding signs and banners, all the way down to the end of Market Street. One popular chant that captured the mood of our counter-protest: “Fuck You Woman Haters—Women Are NOT Incubators!!” We then rallied and held a speak-out right in their faces as they marched into Justin Herman Plaza. Young women from local colleges and high schools were ferocious and articulate on the bullhorn—going to town calling out the “March for Life” for being a march of woman-haters and forcefully declaring “We’re not going back” and “We’re going to fight these attacks”—conveying a clarity about the real stakes of this battle.

Photo: revcom.us/Revolution

Afterward at a final speak-out, people, including people who had joined us on the spot during the day, stepped up to talk about their own experiences and what compelled them to stand up for women’s basic rights. One young Black woman said she was there for her niece who got pregnant; when she told her mother, her mother slapped her and told her to suck it up and forced her to have a child against her wishes. Another young woman, a Latina, said, “Last year I was marching with them, and saw you, but I was told you’re killing babies. But then I realized those people don’t want women to have any rights, that they should even be forced to have the babies of rapists.” Sunsara Taylor and Carl Dix saluted the protesters and invited them to deepen the struggle for abortion rights and do so while checking out the movement for revolution.

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