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Abortion Wars on the Streets of SF!
Pro-choicer's confront and protest the presence of the pro-lifers on the streets of San Francisco.
The war over abortion once again hits the streets of San Francisco. Ever since 2005 the religious community has been holding an annual gathering called the Walk for Life. Their message has been the same for the last 10 years. Pro-lifers believe ““Women Deserve Better than Abortion”. Additionally they also believed holding those events in liberal San Francisco packed a bigger punch because people in San Francisco are more apt to “open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values.” Meaning San Franciscans believe that NO laws nor religion should govern decisions about their bodies and their health and their welfare. But the pro-lifers come in buses from all over California, and other parts of the West to push their message, which is “Abortions should be banned by law.
Women seek abortions for their own reasons, and some are so desperate or unhealthy they will do what they will have to, to abort. Before abortion was legal some of the processes they used "back-alley", "backstreet", or "back-yard" abortion were dangerous and sometimes deadly for both fetus and mother. Unsafe abortions are believed to have caused “approximately 69,000 deaths and millions of injuries annually.” Which is why San Franciscans confront, scream-down, and protest their event. Only a small group of SF’ers, compared to the pro-lifers, get out and protest them, but they still do it every year.
Pics and video from the demonstration. It also seemed that SFPD was pushing around journalists.
Women seek abortions for their own reasons, and some are so desperate or unhealthy they will do what they will have to, to abort. Before abortion was legal some of the processes they used "back-alley", "backstreet", or "back-yard" abortion were dangerous and sometimes deadly for both fetus and mother. Unsafe abortions are believed to have caused “approximately 69,000 deaths and millions of injuries annually.” Which is why San Franciscans confront, scream-down, and protest their event. Only a small group of SF’ers, compared to the pro-lifers, get out and protest them, but they still do it every year.
Pics and video from the demonstration. It also seemed that SFPD was pushing around journalists.
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For some of us who can easily remember 1973 when we won Roe v Wade which guaranteed a women in the US the right to a safe and legal abortion (not choice but abortion), it is now a little difficult physically to get out there, so we are glad others can.
This parade is sponsored by the San Francisco Catholic Church, our local version of the Ku Klux Klan, which has the same anti-abortion, anti-women and anti-science-anti-evolution position. Most of the paraders are Catholic school children and their poorly educated parents along with the reactionary priests.
The San Francisco Democratic Party machine, which has held office at City Hall since 1960 did not allow the Ku Klux Klan to parade in SF in the 1980s on the correct basis that no one has a right to FALSELY yell fire in a crowded theater, but they claim the local version of the Klan, the Catholic Church, does have that right, which is a violation of free speech. It is this same Democratic Party that is represented by the police on our streets, defending the anti-abortion thugs, to the tune of $100,000 a year and up plus benefits. Most of the police do not live in San Francisco, although they can afford to.
I noticed this year the anti-abortion banners were not on Market Street, as they were last year, so we sufficiently protested to get that garbage off our main parade street. Those of us who could not get to the demonstration certainly made the phone calls to the Board of Supervisors, all Democrats.
What the Catholic Church is doing is building a fascist base in these hard economic times. That is why this annual protest must continue so long as this vicious attack on women is allowed on our streets.
Roe v Wade is important not only because it guarantees a right to abortion but also because it is instructive on what it takes to make a difference. The majority opinion was written by Justice Blackmun, a Republican Nixon appointee, while a Democratic Kennedy appointee, Justice White dissented, proving that it is mass movements that make the difference. Both parties were and are filled with anti-abortion thugs, but it was our mass movement protesting the war against Vietnam in 1973 that was the umbrella for a wide variety of causes, including women's liberation, that made possible Roe v. Wade.
RIGHT TO LIFE, YOUR NAME IS A LIE; YOU DON'T CARE IF WOMEN DIE.
There are 2 pro-abortion parties on the ballot, Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party. We hope that all of the pro-abortion defenders are registered in one of these parties. If not, please do so now. You can do so online at:
https://covr.sos.ca.gov/?language=en-US
For more information, see
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/about-us/platform/full-platform
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.cagreens.org/platform
http://www.gp.org/index.php
http://www.gp.org/what-we-believe
This parade is sponsored by the San Francisco Catholic Church, our local version of the Ku Klux Klan, which has the same anti-abortion, anti-women and anti-science-anti-evolution position. Most of the paraders are Catholic school children and their poorly educated parents along with the reactionary priests.
The San Francisco Democratic Party machine, which has held office at City Hall since 1960 did not allow the Ku Klux Klan to parade in SF in the 1980s on the correct basis that no one has a right to FALSELY yell fire in a crowded theater, but they claim the local version of the Klan, the Catholic Church, does have that right, which is a violation of free speech. It is this same Democratic Party that is represented by the police on our streets, defending the anti-abortion thugs, to the tune of $100,000 a year and up plus benefits. Most of the police do not live in San Francisco, although they can afford to.
I noticed this year the anti-abortion banners were not on Market Street, as they were last year, so we sufficiently protested to get that garbage off our main parade street. Those of us who could not get to the demonstration certainly made the phone calls to the Board of Supervisors, all Democrats.
What the Catholic Church is doing is building a fascist base in these hard economic times. That is why this annual protest must continue so long as this vicious attack on women is allowed on our streets.
Roe v Wade is important not only because it guarantees a right to abortion but also because it is instructive on what it takes to make a difference. The majority opinion was written by Justice Blackmun, a Republican Nixon appointee, while a Democratic Kennedy appointee, Justice White dissented, proving that it is mass movements that make the difference. Both parties were and are filled with anti-abortion thugs, but it was our mass movement protesting the war against Vietnam in 1973 that was the umbrella for a wide variety of causes, including women's liberation, that made possible Roe v. Wade.
RIGHT TO LIFE, YOUR NAME IS A LIE; YOU DON'T CARE IF WOMEN DIE.
There are 2 pro-abortion parties on the ballot, Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party. We hope that all of the pro-abortion defenders are registered in one of these parties. If not, please do so now. You can do so online at:
https://covr.sos.ca.gov/?language=en-US
For more information, see
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/home/about-us/platform/full-platform
http://www.cagreens.org/
http://www.cagreens.org/platform
http://www.gp.org/index.php
http://www.gp.org/what-we-believe
Please don't call pro-choice folks "pro-abortion". Those right wing asses use that against us!
At the anti-anti demonstration, I noted that there were several photos of women who'd died from self-induced abortions AFTER Roe v Wade. There is a stigma attached to the word 'abortion' that should not be there. Yes, CHOICE needs to the out there in a big way. After all, the Christian fascists are even opposed to contraception! But there has been a very conscious move to stigmatize and shame women away from a medical procedure that is quite safe (when it is legal); and we CAN'T allow the antis to define yet another word in an unscientific way. Fetuses are not babies, women are not incubators and abortion is not murder ... and does not 'harm' women as the antis would like to say!
The full text of the majority opinion in Roe v Wade is at
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113#writing-USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO
IT SAYS NOTHING ABOUT CHOICE. It talks about abortion throughout the entire opinion.
Abortion is termination of pregnancy. From Stedman's Medical Dictionary:
Abortion. The arrest of any action or process before its normal completion.
From Webster's Dictionary: The termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.
STOP BEING THE AVERAGE ANTI-SCIENCE AMERICAN. The United States is profoundly ignorant of science. Its school children score at the bottom of the industrialized world in science.
SCIENCE MEANS KNOWLEDGE, religion is superstition;
Evolution is a fact; abortion is a right;
Gay marriage is a civil right;
There is no supreme being as
LABOR CREATES ALL WEALTH.
The choice racket was provided by religious Americans, like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, who are forced by their constituents to appear pro-abortion, but are not sincere.
THE BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE. Never let your opponent see you cowering before their lies. The capitalist class, not the "right-wing," uses abortion as a political football, and you must never let them terrorize you.
One example of a death due to a lack of legal abortion should make you understand. A few years ago, a woman dentist in Ireland had a fetus die in the womb. To remove the dead fetus was technically an abortion, which is illegal in Catholic Ireland. There was no time to send her to England, where abortion is legal, and where Irish women routinely go to have an abortion, so the woman died due to lack of the right to abortion, termination of pregnancy. THIS IS THE HORROR OF RELIGION AND CONTEMPT FOR SCIENCE.
Abortion is clearly part of women's medical care. In Asia, there are teas to induce abortion. Birth control bills are abortifacents. Wherever abortion is attacked, the exist of birth control pills are threatened as well. Wherever abortion is attacked, the existence of birth control pills are threatened as well. Birth control bills came in the late 1960s, part of the same movement to legalize abortion.
If you look at the world abortion map at http://worldabortionlaws.com/, you will see some clear patterns as to who has legal abortion and who does not. Abortion is most closely related to socialized medicine, which exists in all of Europe, the more advanced countries of Asia, Cuba and Canada. Since the United States is still part of the industrialized world, it was dragged kicking and screaming into the legal abortion sector of the world in 1973. In 1973, we had the socialist world, which was based on science, not religion. To advance in the world, you must unchain yourself from religion and embrace science. That is why in all of Europe for a time, and now most of Europe except Poland, a country that did not fully embrace socialism, as well as Cuba, whose socialist revolution was January 1, 1959, abortion is legal. The socialized world also had, and to a great extent, although not now socialist, still has socialized medicine. See more at http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html
The United States now, in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality among the workingclass, the 80% of us who sell our labor for less than $80,000 a year, is about the same as backward Catholic Poland and backward Catholic Mexico, the latter where it is completely illegal to have an abortion.
IN ADDITION, the US maternal mortality rate is now worse than most of the industrialized world, and this is directly tied to lack of socialized medicine and denial of the right to abortion. See
U.S. maternal death rate grows as attacks on women’s rights continue
By Nathalie Hrizi, Jan 21, 2015 at
http://www.liberationnews.org/u-s-maternal-death-rate-grows-as-attacks-on-womens-rights-continue/
“Let’s compare the United States to countries that also have not been subjected to colonialism or have in fact benefited from colonialism and imperialism. Last year, the U.S. maternal death rate skyrocketed above that of Austria, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Sweden SEVEN times. All of those countries have a maternal death rate of 4 per 100,000 women.”
“A kind of war has been waged internally. This has not been a war of bombs and F-16s and U.S. troops. It has been a political and economic war, a war on women, that has very real consequences for women’s health and livelihood. On the first day of the new Congress, five anti-abortion laws were introduced. A right-wing state-by-state campaign over the last four years has passed extremely anti-women, anti-choice laws in states across the Midwest and South.”
“The state of healthcare for women in this country is dismal. The Affordable Care Act, while providing coverage for many millions who needed it, left many millions more without coverage or with inadequate care. The Obama administration allowed employers to exempt themselves from abortion services and didn’t require abortion to be covered in all plans. The ACA meant little to women in terms of reproductive care. The Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby decision gave corporations the right to deny women birth control coverage.”
“All of this is having an effect. In 2014, 28 women of every 100,000 died during pregnancy and childbirth in the United States. In seven years, the rate has almost doubled, from 14.5 to 28 per 100,000. Institutionalized racism and sexism have worked together to ensure that the rates for women of color are far higher. Nationally, Black women are more likely to die in childbirth than white women.”
“The Center for Reproductive Rights found a clear link between high rates of maternal deaths and highly restrictive anti-abortion policies. Georgia, the state, has the highest maternal death rate (35 per 100,000) and some of the most restrictive anti-abortion policies (a total of 11 laws). Oklahoma has the second highest rate of maternal death as well as an above average infant death rate and the most restrictive polices (a total of 14 laws).”
Thank you Nathalie Hrizi, Peace & Freedom Party’s candidate for Insurance Commissioner in the 2014 elections and a San Francisco public school teacher.
Only profoundly uneducated people show up for the anti-abortion parades, organized by the viciously anti-science, anti-women Catholic Church. Galileo was right, the Catholic Church was and is wrong.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/410/113#writing-USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO
IT SAYS NOTHING ABOUT CHOICE. It talks about abortion throughout the entire opinion.
Abortion is termination of pregnancy. From Stedman's Medical Dictionary:
Abortion. The arrest of any action or process before its normal completion.
From Webster's Dictionary: The termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus.
STOP BEING THE AVERAGE ANTI-SCIENCE AMERICAN. The United States is profoundly ignorant of science. Its school children score at the bottom of the industrialized world in science.
SCIENCE MEANS KNOWLEDGE, religion is superstition;
Evolution is a fact; abortion is a right;
Gay marriage is a civil right;
There is no supreme being as
LABOR CREATES ALL WEALTH.
The choice racket was provided by religious Americans, like Rep. Nancy Pelosi, a Catholic, who are forced by their constituents to appear pro-abortion, but are not sincere.
THE BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE. Never let your opponent see you cowering before their lies. The capitalist class, not the "right-wing," uses abortion as a political football, and you must never let them terrorize you.
One example of a death due to a lack of legal abortion should make you understand. A few years ago, a woman dentist in Ireland had a fetus die in the womb. To remove the dead fetus was technically an abortion, which is illegal in Catholic Ireland. There was no time to send her to England, where abortion is legal, and where Irish women routinely go to have an abortion, so the woman died due to lack of the right to abortion, termination of pregnancy. THIS IS THE HORROR OF RELIGION AND CONTEMPT FOR SCIENCE.
Abortion is clearly part of women's medical care. In Asia, there are teas to induce abortion. Birth control bills are abortifacents. Wherever abortion is attacked, the exist of birth control pills are threatened as well. Wherever abortion is attacked, the existence of birth control pills are threatened as well. Birth control bills came in the late 1960s, part of the same movement to legalize abortion.
If you look at the world abortion map at http://worldabortionlaws.com/, you will see some clear patterns as to who has legal abortion and who does not. Abortion is most closely related to socialized medicine, which exists in all of Europe, the more advanced countries of Asia, Cuba and Canada. Since the United States is still part of the industrialized world, it was dragged kicking and screaming into the legal abortion sector of the world in 1973. In 1973, we had the socialist world, which was based on science, not religion. To advance in the world, you must unchain yourself from religion and embrace science. That is why in all of Europe for a time, and now most of Europe except Poland, a country that did not fully embrace socialism, as well as Cuba, whose socialist revolution was January 1, 1959, abortion is legal. The socialized world also had, and to a great extent, although not now socialist, still has socialized medicine. See more at http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_IAW.html
The United States now, in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality among the workingclass, the 80% of us who sell our labor for less than $80,000 a year, is about the same as backward Catholic Poland and backward Catholic Mexico, the latter where it is completely illegal to have an abortion.
IN ADDITION, the US maternal mortality rate is now worse than most of the industrialized world, and this is directly tied to lack of socialized medicine and denial of the right to abortion. See
U.S. maternal death rate grows as attacks on women’s rights continue
By Nathalie Hrizi, Jan 21, 2015 at
http://www.liberationnews.org/u-s-maternal-death-rate-grows-as-attacks-on-womens-rights-continue/
“Let’s compare the United States to countries that also have not been subjected to colonialism or have in fact benefited from colonialism and imperialism. Last year, the U.S. maternal death rate skyrocketed above that of Austria, Finland, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Spain, and Sweden SEVEN times. All of those countries have a maternal death rate of 4 per 100,000 women.”
“A kind of war has been waged internally. This has not been a war of bombs and F-16s and U.S. troops. It has been a political and economic war, a war on women, that has very real consequences for women’s health and livelihood. On the first day of the new Congress, five anti-abortion laws were introduced. A right-wing state-by-state campaign over the last four years has passed extremely anti-women, anti-choice laws in states across the Midwest and South.”
“The state of healthcare for women in this country is dismal. The Affordable Care Act, while providing coverage for many millions who needed it, left many millions more without coverage or with inadequate care. The Obama administration allowed employers to exempt themselves from abortion services and didn’t require abortion to be covered in all plans. The ACA meant little to women in terms of reproductive care. The Supreme Court in the Hobby Lobby decision gave corporations the right to deny women birth control coverage.”
“All of this is having an effect. In 2014, 28 women of every 100,000 died during pregnancy and childbirth in the United States. In seven years, the rate has almost doubled, from 14.5 to 28 per 100,000. Institutionalized racism and sexism have worked together to ensure that the rates for women of color are far higher. Nationally, Black women are more likely to die in childbirth than white women.”
“The Center for Reproductive Rights found a clear link between high rates of maternal deaths and highly restrictive anti-abortion policies. Georgia, the state, has the highest maternal death rate (35 per 100,000) and some of the most restrictive anti-abortion policies (a total of 11 laws). Oklahoma has the second highest rate of maternal death as well as an above average infant death rate and the most restrictive polices (a total of 14 laws).”
Thank you Nathalie Hrizi, Peace & Freedom Party’s candidate for Insurance Commissioner in the 2014 elections and a San Francisco public school teacher.
Only profoundly uneducated people show up for the anti-abortion parades, organized by the viciously anti-science, anti-women Catholic Church. Galileo was right, the Catholic Church was and is wrong.
For more information:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/te...
i would argue that it's essential for some of us (those who are comfortable) to refer to ourselves as pro-abortion. i am, in fact, pro-abortion in that i am pro-access, pro-reproductive justice, and pro-woman. abortion is a word we need to use, reclaim, and not censor. let's use the a word, and let's use is loudly, with passion, and without shame.
I wasn't able to attend the Counter demo to the Catholic Church 's (mainly not exclusively though ) mass mobliization against Women's Right to have an Abortion .But what i have seen in the past (and according to friends and comrades who were able to attend the 2015 it's still the case ) the demographics of the two actions were troubling .
That is not only was the Anti Abortion march far bigger than the Counter demo but it was far more diverse racially and ethically and far more working class families participated . Why is that ? Yes i know despite it's partial decline the Catholic Church still a large base among Immigrants especially from Mexico , El Salvador and the Philipines . (this has partly compensated for the dramatic decline in support for the Church from their traditional Irish, Italian, and Portuguese base )
I don't think that the Women's Rights movement have really recognized that reality and tried to do something about it . Have there been leafleting in Spanish and Filipino in largely immigrant worker neighborhoods ? Has there been literature from various Catholics for Choice and other similar groups distributed out side of Church masses and/or other similar events ? Has Lit tables been set up at Daly City Shopping malls (where the Majority of the population are Filipino-American or Immigrants from the Philipines ) ?
To bring this about maybe the Women Right's movement should reach out to Bay area supporters of Bayan (the Left Filipino movement ) and/or supporters of the ruling party in El Slavador the FMLN and try to get their support.
And for reaching out to non immigrant Working class Catholics both men and women active in unions should re start that conversation within those organizations . Many Union officials both women and men tend to shy away from taking a stand on Abortion rights preferring to stick strictly on economic issues . But the link between those and issues like abortion can and should be made .
Just a couple of thoughts . And i certainly intend no disrespect whatsoever to those few that did attend the counter demo . It's just that i think we have to break out of our Left ghettos if we are to be successful in countering this reactionary tide .
That is not only was the Anti Abortion march far bigger than the Counter demo but it was far more diverse racially and ethically and far more working class families participated . Why is that ? Yes i know despite it's partial decline the Catholic Church still a large base among Immigrants especially from Mexico , El Salvador and the Philipines . (this has partly compensated for the dramatic decline in support for the Church from their traditional Irish, Italian, and Portuguese base )
I don't think that the Women's Rights movement have really recognized that reality and tried to do something about it . Have there been leafleting in Spanish and Filipino in largely immigrant worker neighborhoods ? Has there been literature from various Catholics for Choice and other similar groups distributed out side of Church masses and/or other similar events ? Has Lit tables been set up at Daly City Shopping malls (where the Majority of the population are Filipino-American or Immigrants from the Philipines ) ?
To bring this about maybe the Women Right's movement should reach out to Bay area supporters of Bayan (the Left Filipino movement ) and/or supporters of the ruling party in El Slavador the FMLN and try to get their support.
And for reaching out to non immigrant Working class Catholics both men and women active in unions should re start that conversation within those organizations . Many Union officials both women and men tend to shy away from taking a stand on Abortion rights preferring to stick strictly on economic issues . But the link between those and issues like abortion can and should be made .
Just a couple of thoughts . And i certainly intend no disrespect whatsoever to those few that did attend the counter demo . It's just that i think we have to break out of our Left ghettos if we are to be successful in countering this reactionary tide .
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