Pro-lifers on both coasts were greeted by angry abortion rights protesters last Friday. At the March for Life in Washington, D.C., the Walk for Life in San Francisco, California, and in other places around the nation, pro-lifers not only outnumbered their abortion opposition but displayed the striking difference between the culture of life and the culture of death.
In D.C., the self-proclaimed radical communist pro-abortion group Stop Patriarchy had threatened to disrupt the March for Life and sure enough, they tried. With their faux die-ins and bloody garb, they chanted, “Pro-life, your name’s a lie, you don’t care if women die!” while pro-lifers responded, “We are the pro-life generation!”
The group – considered extreme even by most mainstream abortion rights groups – mocked pro-lifers, claiming that preborn children are not human beings. They uploaded video of a song in which they claimed, “There is nooo God, no Heaven and no hell…” and sang, “a baby’s not a baby till it comes out.”
While the March for Life was happening, Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, founder of New Wave Feminists (left) posted a photo she took during the March of herself standing next to Sunsara Taylor (right; the one leading the “There is no God” song), founder of Stop Patriarchy:
Herndon-De La Rosa told Live Action News that New Wave Feminists, along with Students for Life, arrived in front of the Supreme Court about 20 minutes before the rest of the marchers. Stop Patriarchy was already stationed at the Supreme Court, as they were last year, to try and stop the March. But according to Herndon-De La Rosa, marchers always stop there anyway. She then detailed what happened next:
We were just smiling and laughing and we had a lot of joy and it seemed to make them angry. At the end of the day we know they are hurting. It breaks my heart. Women do not make the decision to have an abortion because it empowers them but out of fear, panic, and coercion.
The pro-life feminist leader said she felt a lot of common ground with Stop Patriarchy in that “we are also against porn and the sexual exploitation of women and we actually agree with Stop Patriarchy on this. When we agreed with them and repeated some of their chants with them, I think it caught them off guard.”
Destiny and her daughter confront abortion supporters. (Photo: New Wave Feminists)
Herndon-De La Rosa said that the confrontation between the groups of students and women was not what the media typically sees:
Rather than there being Priests and men, there were women and students at the front of the line when Stop Patriarchy tried to confront the marchers.
The media wants to make this narrative that its all about men dominating women and we messed that up. At the Supreme Court, we were able to hijack that narrative – this transcends women’s rights and its about human rights. Finally, women from both sides are having a dialogue.
New Wave Feminists felt compassion for the abortion supporters. “We saw pain. We saw regret. We saw real sadness like most of us have never felt… and it manifested as anger,” Herndon-De La Rosa said.
After the confrontation, largest pro-life student group Students for Life posed some interesting questions to the small pro-abortion group on their blog, asking them the following:
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How come you were screaming at us for hating young women…when we are young women? #awk…
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Did you actually think the start of the March for Life was the small group of 200 people and that… the snow scared the other hundreds of thousands of people away? We weren’t really sure what you were trying to do when you ran out to stop them…
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What does it feel like to scream in young women’s faces who are kneeling to pray in front of you?
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We must misunderstand the word “tolerance”, because shoving people and screaming derogatory slurs doesn’t seem very tolerant to us.
While New Wave Feminists and Students for Life verbally countered Stop Patriarchy’s chants at the March, other pro-life groups were kneeling in prayer.
Jacob Hoback, a student from Ohio, ran into the radical abortion supporters outside the Supreme Court and documented their reaction, tweeting, “The difference between those who support genocide and those who support love #LoveVSHate.”
Meanwhile in Texas, Stop Patriarchy also made an appearance at the Texas Rally for Life in Austin. Daryl Rodriguez, president at Love of Truth Ministries, told Live Action News that the group showed up with a very small number of protesters in comparison to the numbers of pro-lifers who attended:
Small group of Stop Patriarchy abortion supporters (Photo: Daryl Rodriguez)
In California, a handful of abortion radicals showed up at two pro-life Walks where pro-lifers – made up of many young people and minorities – outnumbered their opposition several times over.
At the Walk for Life in San Francisco, where Students for Life also had a huge presence, pro-lifers were interrupted by a few bare breasted abortion supporters. This photo (below) was uploaded to Twitter by Students for Life, showing the abortion supporters getting arrested:
They call themselves FEMEN, and they protested a speech by Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden,
who caught Planned Parenthood on undercover video haggling over the body parts of the babies they abort.
FEMEN describes themselves as an “international women’s movement of brave topless female activists painted with the slogans and crowned with flowers. FEMEN is the special force of feminism, its spearhead militant unit, a modern incarnation of fearless and free Amazons. FEMEN’s tactics of protest is Sextremism.”
The topless women, painted with the slogans, “Abortion is sacred” and “F*** your morals,” screamed, “Fry, fake liars!” repeatedly until police took them away.
Students for Life also captured a photo of this genitalia costume-clad abortion advocate who thinks abortion is “awesome.”
Abortion radicals from Stop Patriarchy also made their debut at the San Francisco Walk for Life, with Students for Life tweeting this image depicting their hate-filled attitude:
In Oakland, California, Rev. Walter Hoye, founder of Issues 4 Life, reports that their group of African-American pro-lifers at the Walk for Life West Coast was targeted by abortion protesters for the second year in a row. But while the group chanted “Black Lives Matter” – ignoring the disproportionate way abortion targets the Black community – “this time the opposition didn’t have a single Black person with them, so their ‘Black Lives Matter’ chants rang hollow,” said Hoye.
Last year, Stop Patriarchy disrupted the Black pro-life event when they pushed their way in front of the speakers. But this year, things were much different, according to Hoye:
This time Oakland Police Department (OPD) surrounded our stage protecting our speakers, marched with us and kept the [abortion] protesters away from us as we marched through the middle of downtown Oakland, so I want to publicly thank them.
(Photo: Issues 4 Life)
Rev. Hoye reported that the message of life was communicated, despite protesters’ best efforts.
The Rev. Clenard Childress described the development of the preborn child at the event while abortion supporters chanted. Childress addressed the pro-abortion group, saying, “You dare come out here holding a sign supporting that mutilation, and you call it a civil right? You don’t know what a civil right is.”
“We are pro-women,” he added. “Abortionists have killed more women, have mutilated more women than anything on this earth. How dare you say you stand for women! Let me say this, we love you, but you’re not right!”
