San Francisco: A Pro-Abortion Flash Mob

December 21, 2015 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From a reader of revcom.us and supporter of Stop Patriarchy:

It is Sunday afternoon, five days before Christmas. An indoor San Francisco mall is packed with people doing their last-minute holiday shopping. A woman walks by holding high in the air a coat hanger with a red-soaked cloth hanging from the tip. Her white pants are stained red from the crotch down the inside of her legs. Her shirt bears the words, “Abortion on Demand and Without Apology.” Over her face she is holding the picture of Rosie Jimenez, a woman who died from a botched illegal abortion.

As she steps onto the escalator, eyes turn in her direction. Someone takes a picture with their phone. She gets to the top and steps off, moving toward a central location in the mall, where she joins two other women similarly dressed, each with the face of another dead woman. The trio falls over and lies on the ground, motionless. Another woman steps in beside them and announces loudly that what people see before them is the reality of what happens when abortion is illegal—women die. She declares that forced motherhood is female enslavement, and that faced with an all-out assault on abortion rights and escalating violence against providers, if you care about the future for women everywhere, you have to get in the streets and oppose the massive, woman-hating Walk for “Life” January 23. Others are passing out fliers like mad to a curious and sometimes cheering, sometimes jeering swarm of people. As security gathers and tries to figure out what to do, people crowd around the spiraling railings all ten stories up in the mall, stare down at the scene below them, and dozens of cell phone cameras capture the scene.

In one month’s time, on the day after the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, an anti-abortion march of tens of thousands will go right past this mall, and this “flash mob” action was the first of many planned actions to take a stand for abortion rights and go up in the face of these woman-haters who want to control women’s lives and bodies. In the past year there have been increasing restrictions placed on abortion throughout this country. Planned Parenthood has come under major attacks, both politically with regard to funding as well as physically as with the recent shooting in Colorado Springs.

And it’s not only the anti-abortion proponents who are contributing to this climate. Even supposedly “pro-choice” candidates promote their position in a way that makes abortion seem like something to be ashamed of. The mantra of abortion being “safe, legal and rare,” suggests that the rarity of abortions is at least as important as the safety and legality of it.

Unfortunately, the rarity of safe and legal abortions has become a very deadly reality in today’s political climate. Right now, six states have only one abortion provider. “Abortion deserts” are rapidly spreading across the U.S.—there are expanses of 600 miles where there is no abortion provider. In Texas, which has set the stage for the legislation that has shut down dozens of abortion clinics, women have begun to self-induce abortions. This is what happened to Tennessee’s Anna Yocca, who would have needed to travel 45 miles for an abortion, and is now in jail on attempted murder charges because of her state’s “feticide” law.

The movement that wants to abolish abortion is actually fighting for an archaic role for women—property of men, breeders of children, locked out of participating in broader society outside the family. This is a hell on earth for women. There is nothing wrong with abortion. Women should not have to risk their lives to get an abortion. Nor should they have to apologize for their desire to get an abortion. Women have every right to lead as full lives as men and have control over if and when they are ready to raise a family. Women are not incubators!

On January 22 in DC and January 23 in San Francisco—where will you be? We are calling on YOU to take a stand against the anti-abortion March for Forced Motherhood. We must rise up and call for ABORTION ON DEMAND AND WITHOUT APOLOGY! Don’t let the future belong to the woman-haters.

 

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