A spirited counter demonstration of about 400 confronted a large number of anti-abortion protesters who had been bussed into San Francisco from as far away as San Diego and Reno to march in the streets of San Francisco opposing the right to choice. The anti-abortion march made a pretense of being "protecting women from abortion." But protesters exposed these lies bringing out that abortion is safe -- in fact much safer than carrying a fetus until birth. That where abortion is illegal many women die horrible deaths from illegal abortions and that without the right to control her on body and reproduction women cannot really be free.

There were a lot of creative protest that brought out the horror that the forced imposition of a biblically-based patriarchy would mean for women and for society overall. The sisters of perpetual indulgence were there with some great musical numbers and offering condoms to teenage anti-abortion protesters. World Can't Wait had President Bush in a jail cell and a sign saying, "No to Anti-women, Gay Hating, Christian Fascist Theocracy. A man wearing a George Bush mask and carrying a 4 foot tall Holy Bible, led -- with a large paper mache chain -- a number of women carrying coat hangers through the anti-abortion demo before they were thrust out by police.

I was struck by the anger and determination of many young people at the demonstration. With a number of crucial Supreme Court cases on abortion scheduled for this year there is a real need to bring massive numbers of people into the streets to say NO! to these attacks on abortion, as well as the whole direction in which US society is headed.