By DEXTER DUGGAN
SAN FRANCISCO — Angry protests against Donald Trump often were billed as “women’s marches” the day after he was inaugurated president on January 20.
However, a strident emphasis on encouraging permissive abortion and birth control seemed to indicate there’s something wrong with being women unless they’re giving priority to counteracting their childbearing potential.
A speaker at the West Coast annual conference of Students for Life of America here on January 22 noted there were many women protesters saying they can’t be worthwhile unless they’re like men and don’t have babies.
The speaker, Alison Howard, director of alliance relations at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), said that when she once asked her boss why such women were so angry, the reply was that men see pregnancy as something that impedes their careers.
ADF is an Arizona-based legal-activist organization defending traditional values.
The Virginia-based Students for Life of America (SFLA) holds an annual conference on each coast the day after a major pro-life march occurs there — the Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco and the March for Life in Washington, D.C.
Coincidentally, both those cities had large “women’s marches” on January 21.
Tina Whittington, SFLA executive vice president, told The Wanderer that she was at the anti-Trump protest in the nation’s capital on January 21 before flying here for the SFLA conference the next day.
SFLA wanted to bring the truth to as many people as possible at the D.C. protest, she said, and actually managed to jump out in front of that march to lead it with three banners before they were attacked, harassed, and spat at and their signage mistreated. Two banners said “Abortion Betrays Women” and one said “We Don’t Need Planned Parenthood.”
The studentsforlife.org website carried a story posted January 22 about this, “Not welcome but we came anyway.”
The story reported, “It was brutal and disheartening but we stayed. We were able to have civil conversations with some participants of the march.”
Whittington told The Wanderer there was much yelling saying, “My body, my choice.”
When The Wanderer replied that the baby being aborted is a different person’s body, Whittington said, “They have to believe those (ideas) because they have a certain lifestyle they want to keep. . . . In order to live that way, they have to be okay with abortion.”
Both hats and word choices at the march were offensive, she said.
“I believe in the dignity of women,” Whittington said. “. . . But these women responded with vagina hats. It was so vulgar. How does that respond for the dignity of women?”
As for comments made from the stage, “It was so vulgar…basically reducing us to one sexual organ. I know I’m more than that,” she said.
The march sported a theme of “inclusivity and tolerance, but that wasn’t our experience,” Whittington said.
Indeed, marchers were expected to accept the pro-abortion mindset.
The frequently worn pink “pussycat” caps also had a vile significance.
The SFLA San Francisco conference had about 500 students attending, while 1,500 were expected for the January 28 conference after Washington’s March for Life, SFLA president Kristan Hawkins said.
The organization has 1,171 chapters.
The one-day West Coast conference included presentations on “How to win people to our movement: What makes us equal?,” “Knowing your rights on campus,” “Heroes journey: Answering the call to adventure,” “How to speak heroically about abortion,” “Helping moms be heroes,” “Theology of the body,” and “Reaching your peers.”
Hawkins, mimicking Trump’s New York pronunciation of “huge,” drew laughter when she told the conference, “We actually have a yuge opportunity right now” with the beginning of the Trump administration.
Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, “was trying to defund Planned Parenthood before it was cool,” she said.
Earlier in her morning remarks, Hawkins said, “Those who have stood with us, their lives have been transformed” by living for others. “. . . Abortion is the greatest human-rights violation the world has ever known. . . .
“We know where our victory is, and we’re working toward it,” she added.
“Our generation has an advantage” that previous ones lacked, she said. “We have advantages because science is on our side” — including educational technology like ultrasound.
Some truths have to be told even if they’re considered difficult, she said, such as saying Planned Parenthood sells baby body parts and violates the law.
“This is not mean” to say this. “You can’t be afraid to say what it is you are against,” she said, although there are “strategic” ways to go about expressing a message.
There are 3,000 pregnancy-aid centers across the country versus 600 Planned Parenthood centers, “so we outnumber them,” Hawkins said.
She began by showing a video that said, “Abortion makes promises that it cannot keep. . . . The human person is under attack. . . . Campuses are ground zero for the pro-life movement” to deliver its message.
Howard, the ADF representative, reminded the conference that a baby saved is a life to be lived. “Do not stop advocating for life,” she said. “You don’t know who will stand on this stage 40 years from now and say thank you” for being spared from abortion.
Pro-lifers may have various views on other issues but unite in defense of innocent lives — although the Democratic Party has allowed radical pro-abortionists within its ranks to drive out or diminish pro-life views there.
Secular Pro-Life
Various pro-life groups’ information tables were in the hall outside the SFLA San Francisco conference. At one of them, Terrisa Bukovinac told The Wanderer of her sympathy for various issues addressed by the Women’s March here with tens of thousands of participants on January 21, which she showed up at.
It was held in the very same area where the Walk for Life West Coast occurred earlier in the afternoon.
Bukovinac is president of Pro-Life Future of San Francisco and a co-leader for Secular Pro-Life. She held two signs at the Women’s March, “Atheist, Feminist, and Pro-Life. Human rights for all humans,” and “Mr. Trump, xenophobia is not pro-life.” Other pro-life feminists’ messages included, “Abortion is a tool of the patriarchy” and a shirt saying, “This is what a pro-life feminist looks like.” “We experienced exactly zero hostility for pro-life messaging,” she told The Wanderer. “. . . We got a lot of approving nods, high-fives, ‘thanks for being here,’ and even some supporters that were explicitly pro-abortion told us we were welcome there….
“A lot of people came up, asking, ‘Why are you pro-life?’ They were curious. They wanted to take pictures of us. It was real exciting,” Bukovinac said. “. . . Their inclusive attitude was welcoming. . . . We were coming together to stand against some of the principles of the current administration.”
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress