Pro-choice Rally and Counter-protest on the Anniversary of Roe v. Wade

...but when the Supreme Court recriminalizes abortion (or more likely, allows states to do so), what's anyone gonna do about it?

The whole right to choice is built on this foundation of sand. That is the probelm to tackle. How about free rides to free states (for free abortions? Now that IS going too far)...

They will take away abortion because they spent 50 years organizing their takeover, while we fearfully voted for Democrats who weren't going to let this happen, right? This strategy very much included feminist leadership in this country since the 60s at least.

Yelling at fundies in public feels good, but they can afford to feel smug at this point, and we can't. That's worth remembering.

We are not lining any march; we are stopping the fascist parade at Justin Hermann Plaza, where it starts. This is the last time these thugs will promote fascism on the streets of San Francisco. This is not some kind of carnival and we will not be shoved onto a pier. This is our City and we will not let the Catholic Church, sponsors of this fascist parade, or anyone else promote the murder of women and fascism on the streets of San Francisco.

>>>we will not let the Catholic Church, sponsors of this fascist parade, or anyone else promote the murder of women and fascism on the streets of San Francisco.<<<<

What the fuck?

Do you really think that you're going to stop them? And do you really think that you exhorting your will over them is somehow anti-fascist? Its not.

Ok your website is pro-choice in the murder of children, yet against the death of a murderer, please make some sense you facist pinko pigs.

You are another irrelevant right wing shill. Go regurgitate your nutty talking points from AM whack-job radio somehwere else.

of your children did u kill cause you didn't want them after fucking around with many men.

1. Not everyone on this site fits into your small-minded cookie cutter mentality
2. Have you noticed that many of those who are rabidly against abortion are also supportive of the fiasco in Iraq, and supportive of the death penalty??? Yet they say they are pro-life....hmmmmm.

I don't feel smug, and doing this rally isnt the only thing I've done this year. If you're worried about a mono-culture developing in terms of strategies and tactics, rest assured, we are on the same page. I think doing rallies and counter protests have a place, and I feel that on Jan. 21st, that place is obvious.
If you have any ideas about how to stop the erosion of a weak finding(if youre saying Roe V Wade is a weak finding, I couldnt agree more), please feel free to join us at BACORR organizing meetings, or contact us to see what we think needs to be done, ponder that, and then...start your own plan of action!
There's room for everyone and work to be done.
Following is a list of approaches/short terms campaigns that could re-vivify the grassroots work on reproductive rights.
For instance, Rite Aid, one of the larger pharmacies in SF does not offer the morning after pill. I did some research to figure out how to get pharamacists to recieve qualification to dispense it, and it's pretty simple.
Also, the clinic at the corner of O'Farrell and Divisidero is looking for clinic volunteers, because it's being attacked. Finally, for people who have wondered about ways to support women who have had abortions, and are having a hard time, EXHALE, a group in Oakland, that uses the term pro-voice to emphasize it's approach to providing space for women to speak free from pro or anti-choice orthodxies, trains counselors to help woman who are hurting. There are so many approaches we could take! We just need the people doing it.
Love,
Elizabeth Creely

I would like to add that I think the idea of pro-choice march is good, but trying to shut down their march is not only bad -- it means becoming what you accuse the other side of being.

It is incredibly arrogant and narrowminded to claim that the only viewpoint represented in the Bay Area is prochoice. Other people live there and also have the right to march, too, whether we like the message or not.

Currently, there are no major legal challenges to Roe v. Wade right now. Therefore, this whole anti-anti-choice march is simple reactionary politics.

Personally, I don't have time to be a reactionary. There are bigger pieces of tofu to fry. By turning out in large numbers you are guaranteeing them more press coverage.

you're wrong. Alito is probably going to get confirmed, although it hurts me to say that, and..well, read on


The battle over abortion rights has returned to the US Supreme Court, where campaigners are fighting to overturn a New Hampshire law that requires minors to inform their parents before they can receive the operation.

It is the first time the court has heard an abortion rights case under the leadership of Chief Justice John Roberts, and the outcome of the hearing - which will not be announced for some weeks - is unclear because of the recent shake-up in the court's membership.

In a filing before the court, the attorney general of New Hampshire, Kelly Ayotte, said the law "provides pregnant minors with the benefit of parental guidance and assistance in exercising what is undoubtedly a difficult choice".

But campaigners say the law places an "undue burden" on women and that the requirement could threaten their health. "In an emergency, a woman needs to go to the hospital, not a courthouse," the court was told by Jennifer Dalven, a lawyer for the abortion rights group Planned Parenthood. She added: "One of the main questions ... is whether doctors can continue to challenge harmful abortion restrictions before they threaten patients' health." While the case before the court does not directly challenge the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling that decided women had the right to a legal abortion, campaigners say the New Hampshire law is one of many pieces of state legislation that have been steadily undermining the landmark decision. They point out that 87 per cent of counties across the US do not have a doctor or clinic that provides abortions.

More
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article330446.ece

No one has a right to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater. That is the parameter of all free speech laws. That is why no fascists have a right to march. They openly support murder, in this case, of women, which is what denial of abortion means. Abortion has always and will always exist but when it is illegal, women die from illegal abortions. The reason for this fascist march at this time of increasing fascism and attacks on all sectors of the workingclass is to kick women out of the workplace and force them to again, as in the fascist days before abortion was legalized, to become breeders of cannon fodder and of breeders of cannon fodder. This is all the standard fascist agenda; Hitler tried it and failed.

We, of all generations and classes, will be there to make sure that all of these stupid fascists get back in their cars and on their buses and never have a fascist march in San Francisco again. We will of course be peaceful but firm. We will not allow fascism in San Francisco.

As to the US Supreme Court, please remember that the majority opinion in Roe v. Wade was written by a Nixon appointee, Justice Blackmun, and a Kennedy appointee, Justice Whtie, dissented. Please also remember that Ronald Reagan, as governor, signed California's abortion law around 1970, shortly before the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Nixon and Reagan were viewed as another Hitler, which they were, and so is Bush, which he is. It was our mass movements in the streets that made possible Roe v. Wade and it is the same mass movement that will defend it.

It is always darkest before the dawn, and that is the hour that is now. We will not retreat on abortion, public education, peace or labor rights, including Social Security. We will not only not retreat, we will advance to fully publicly funded abortions and all other health care for all people from cradle to grave and put an end to the private profit system that is the cause of all this grief.

To the younger generation: You are not alone. All generations, colors, genders, and sexual orientations will be there with our collective political memory, from fighting fascism in Spain, Germany, the rest of Europe, organizing labor, fighting US imperialism, and fighting for basic social needs right here at home.

The final stanza and chorus of Grandma's Battle Cry by an old friend long gone, Irene Paull (1908-1981), says it all:

Some people keep on fighting when they've lost an arm or leg
Some still keep up the struggle when they're fragile as an egg
I've heard men rasping "I object!" with voices turned to gravel,
I've seen a woman raise a fist who couldn't lift a gavel,
And even with a broken heart one still can make a stand,
So lead, my children, lead the way, reach back and take my hand.
We'll march again, confound them all, don't quibble at my age!
I'll shield you with my brittle bones! I'll nourish you with rage!

I marched to staunch Korea's blood, I marched for Vietnam
I marched to stop the napalm and I marched to stop the bomb
I've marched and marched and marched, Oh Lord,
I'm sure I've done my due;
I've marched since I was barely ten, and now I'm seventy-two.
We'll march again, confound them all, don't quibble at my age!
I'll shield you with my brittle bones! I'll nourish you with rage!

Big love to you.

The thing the anti-choicers don't realize is that there is a history. People like Grandma remember what is was like when abortions were illegal and you better be married or else. For the rest of you who want to know what it was like, check google for "Gerri Santoro". You may find a picture that will shock you, but that's what it was like when there was no right to abortion for women.

You will also find a bunch of "right to lifers" trying to say she should have had her baby and risk having the living crap beaten out of her by her husband. Keep fighting. We won't go back.

I was listening to kpfa's morning show this a.m., and they had a pro-choice and anti-choice person on talking about the march this saturday. The anti-choice woman mentioned that people should "keep it peaceful" and that the action last year was very disturbing. (at which point the pro-choice woman said "no, it wasn't.") so, at least we were successful in making these folks feel unwelcome and uncomfortable here in sf. let's make sure that happens again and come out on saturday.

...I found disturbing. An old anti-choice white man calling a group of spirited young women of color "sluts". But they just laughed at him. That made it kind of funny in a way, but points up both the sexism and racism of patriarchy.

What about the majestic wooden beings, ancient manifest deities that tower over all other life, whose defiled corpses your house is made from? What blind arrogance causes you to imagine you're more important than them? When you drive by a logging site do you hang your head in sorrow and rage? I do.

Sometimes you are nearly eloquent, TW.
Sometimes you almost have me believing that you are a very real and rational being.
Then I read your posts on other threads and i realize its just an illusion.
Oh, well.