SAN FRANCISCO (OSV News) – The first Walk for Life West
Coast since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June drew an
outsized crowd of tens of thousands of pro-life supporters, apparently
undaunted by California's newly approved constitutional amendment removing all
restrictions on abortion.
"Both Dobbs and Prop. 1 have reignited the pro-life movement in California
and today's turnout shows it," said Eva Muntean, co-chair of the Walk for
Life.
The walk stretched more than a mile along Market Street, the city's main
downtown thoroughfare, which was closed to traffic for the event.
"I want to speak for the unborn who don't have a voice," said Jesus
Garcia, 24, a Cal-State East Bay student from Newark, California, who said this
year was his fourth year at the walk. Garcia held a handmade sign that said,
"Abortion is violence against a human life. Not health care or a woman's
right!"
"After Roe, we decided to come and bring the prayer here where it was
needed," said Deacon Kevin Stephenson of St. Benedict Parish in Broken
Arrow, Oklahoma, who with his wife, Monica, brought 20 high school students
from the parish youth group, including two of their own children. Last year,
they went to the March for Life in Washington. "It's our kids who wanted
to come here. We just followed the Holy Spirit."
For California, the June 24 Dobbs v. Jackson's Women's Health Organization
ruling that overturned Roe and returned abortion to the states is bittersweet:
voters in November approved by nearly 67% Proposition 1, enshrining a state
constitutional amendment legalizing contraception and abortion with no
restrictions until birth.
Gov. Gavin Newsom and the Democrat majority in the state legislature placed the
constitutional amendment on the ballot shortly after the Dobbs ruling was
issued.
Demonstrators supporting legal abortion came out in greater numbers too, albeit
much smaller than the Walk for Life marchers. About 200 gathered on the corner
of Civic Center Plaza, jeering often obscene slogans and waving signs, as the
crowd exited the rally site to begin the mile-plus walk. A half-mile away, at
the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, the sidewalk and even parts of the
edifice were defaced with vile, threatening graffiti.
"They do not know what to do because they have realized for the first time
in 49 years that they have to defend this barbaric surgery that is built on
violence and you cannot defend it," said Shawn Carney, co-founder,
president and CEO of 40 Days for Life. He noted that across the U.S. pregnancy
resource centers outnumber abortion providers 5 to 1. He said 36% of Planned
Parenthood facilities have shut down in the past decade.
San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone opened the rally with a
prayer. "I am so grateful to God, and I am so grateful to all of you, for
this day we have been waiting for, for 50 years," Archbishop Cordileone
said.
"Women do not just show up and have an abortion," said speaker Angela
Minter, president and co-founder of Sisters For Life Inc., who has dedicated
her life to mobilize particularly the historically Black Church to end
abortion. The married mother of three living children had two abortions in her
late teens. "Someone needed to enter my world and tell me that you can do
it, you can have your baby -- but there was no one there to do it," Minter
said.
Rebecca Kiessling, an attorney and international pro-life speaker, was born
after her mother was raped. She told the crowd, "I did not deserve the
death penalty because of the crime of my biological father."
The Rev. Clenard Childress Jr. has spoken at almost every Walk for Life,
beginning with the first one in 2005. This year the walk gave him its St.
Gianna Molla Award, with Muntean comparing him to the prophet Isaiah, calling
him a pro-life hero and "one of America's greatest orators."
The day began with a special pro-life Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral, composed by
Chris Mueller at the request of Archbishop Cordileone, featuring the St. Brigid
Catholic School children's choir.
Bishops Robert F. Vasa of Santa Rosa, Myron J. Cotta of Stockton and Jaime Soto of Sacramento concelebrated the Mass along with a number of priests.
When
Archbishop Cordileone commissioned the special Mass, he believed it would bring
notes of beauty and hope to the looming 50th anniversary of Roe. Instead, the
sacred music of the Mass of the Memorial of St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr,
marked the first post-Roe Walk for Life.
"Little did I know, nor anyone else for that matter, that there actually
would be something happy to celebrate," the archbishop said in his homily.
"What so many of us dreamed of, prayed for and worked hard for during the
course of half a century came to pass: the overturning of this monstrous
decision."
"While the now historic Dobbs decision is a great step forward in building
a culture of life in our society, in another sense it adds new and even greater
challenges, especially here in our own state of California, which promises to
be a so-called 'sanctuary state' for abortion" with the passage in
November of a state constitutional amendment protecting unrestricted abortion
until birth, Archbishop Cordileone noted.
This
year, as every year, the walk organization sponsored an info fair with pro-life
pregnancy and abortion healing ministries.
The Walk for Life weekend included the Standing Up 4 Life rally in Oakland Jan.
20, where speakers emphasized the special toll that abortion has taken on the
African American community. Sts. Peter and Paul Church offered all-night
Eucharistic adoration.
At
St. Dominic Catholic Church's evening Mass and prayer vigil Jan. 20, Bishop
Soto acknowledged the discouragement many felt when a statewide campaign to
stop Prop. 1 failed, but he reminded those gathered that God is faithful.
"We are not here to take up our own journey but the journey with the Lord
Jesus, wherever he may lead us," Bishop Soto said in his homily. "Too
easily can we be tempted to let our purpose and methods be contaminated by the
discordant manners and demented methods of the day … we cannot predict in what
manner the Lord Jesus will bring about his kingdom.
"But we are called to remain faithfully in his company to seek to make his
wisdom and mercy known to others."
Founded in 2005 by a group of San Francisco Bay Area residents, the Walk for
Life West Coast's mission is to change the perceptions of a society that thinks
abortion is the answer.
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Valerie Schmalz writes for OSV News from San Francisco.
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