Among the defenders of a woman’s right to choose were many high school students and other youth. Several protesters interviewed by the Militant were attending their first ever protest.

“The laws are crazy,” said Reequanza McBride, 17. “Men shouldn’t be able to decide for women what we can do with our bodies.” McBride was one of nearly two dozen members of Youth Together, an organization of students from six different high schools throughout the Bay Area.

Leslie Lopez, 18, a student at Laney Community College in Oakland, and a member of TOJIL (Together Organizing for Justice and Indigenous Liberation), said that her organization had been actively building the demonstration for several weeks. The two groups marched together carrying graffiti-style handwritten signs and leading their own original chants through a hand-held megaphone.  
 
Two protests of similar size
The pro-choice protesters lined the sidewalk of the Embarcadero on the march route of the anti-abortion advocates, who walked, mostly in silence, behind a banner reading “abortion hurts women.” Pro-choice marchers chanted “Pro-life, that’s a lie! You don’t care if women die!” and “Ho ho, hey hey! Abortion rights are here to stay!”

Many of the younger pro-choice demonstrators continued to follow the “right to life” march from the sidewalk several more blocks until police prevented them from continuing.

The anti-abortion protesters drew a somewhat larger crowd than the counterprotest. The main slogan of their march was, “Women deserve better than abortion.”

The San Francisco Chronicle noted that many of the pro-choice activists regarded the anti-abortion marchers as “invaders of the city.” Dian Harrison, president of the Golden Gate chapter of Planned Parenthood, said, “We couldn’t believe they had the nerve to come to San Francisco.”

Walk for Life organizers Dolores Meehan and Eva Muntean told the press they had deliberately chosen San Francisco, known for the predominance of liberal attitudes, as the site of their “first annual” action.

The city governments of San Francisco, Berkeley, and Oakland each passed unanimous resolutions backing the pro-choice action.

Some women’s groups and many liberal Democratic Party politicians, however, tried to avoid confrontation or strike an outright conciliatory tone toward opponents of a woman’s right to choose abortion.  
 
San Francisco NOW pulls out
The San Francisco chapter of the National Organization of Women (NOW) withdrew its support for the pro-choice march days before the action.

“We, along with California NOW, ask that NOW members NOT participate in counter demonstrating,” said chapter co-president Sarah Weston in a January 18 statement. “Engaging the anti-choice community in this way detracts from our positive message and gives the agenda-setting power to the anti-choice community.”

San Francisco NOW members joined the pro-choice rally earlier in the day and left before the march began.

In the week following San Francisco NOW’s decision to pull back from confronting anti-abortion forces, Senator Hillary Clinton, a prominent Democrat in New York, gave a speech declaring her shared “moral values” with opponents of a woman’s right to choose.

On January 24, Clinton told the annual conference of Family Planning Advocates of New York State in Albany, the state’s capital, that they should seek “common ground” with opponents of choice in reducing the number of abortions. “We can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women,” she said. “The best way to reduce the number of abortions is to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place.”

While reiterating her support for Roe v. Wade, Clinton also advocated abstinence to reduce the number of abortions. “Research shows that the primary reason teenage girls abstain from early sexual activity is because of their religious and moral values,” she said.

A number of people in the audience disagreed with some of Clinton’s remarks, according to the New York Times. “I understood what Senator Clinton meant when she said abortion could be a sad and tragic choice,” said Martha Stahl, director for public relations and marketing for Northern Adirondack Planned Parenthood. “But we see women express relief more than anything else that they have the freedom to choose.”  
 
Actions in Washington, D.C.
Smaller antichoice marches and counter protests took place in many U.S. cities on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Anti-abortion forces held a protest of tens of thousands in Washington, D.C., three days later that Bush addressed via a phone hookup to Camp David.

On January 22 more than 100 supporters of women’s right to choose rallied in Washington in front of the Supreme Court. The “We Won’t Go Back” rally was organized by NOW.

Chanting and marching in a circle with signs waving in the bitter cold of a snow storm that had just passed, the spirited crowd of mostly young women paid little attention to the same number of opponents of women’s rights, most of whom were standing, or kneeling, with their face toward the Supreme Court building.

The anti-abortion protesters had covered their mouths with red tape with the word “Life” written on it. A couple of those whose mouths were not taped shouted at the defenders of women’s rights, but were answered by chants of “Not the church, not the state, women must decide their fate!” and “Our bodies, our lives, our right to decide!”

Speakers at the short rally included NOW president Kim Gandy, and a representative of Code Pink, another pro-choice group, as well as a couple of young women’s rights activists.

Earlier in the day, opponents of the right to choose abortion protested at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington, D.C., where they were met by clinic defenders who escorted clients inside the clinic.

Lea Sherman in Washington, D.C., contributed to this article.
 
 
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