Rival Protesters Converge on S.F. for Anniversary of Abortion Ruling

It’s an unlikely battlefield. But several thousand abortion foes from as far as Florida are expected to march today in the streets of this city that fervently backs abortion rights.

Close behind them, supporters of a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate her pregnancy are scheduled to stage one of the biggest counterdemonstrations that activists here have planned in recent memory.

The occasion of the faceoff is the 32nd anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that effectively legalized abortion. But far more is stirring here below the surface.

The audacity of an antiabortion incursion into the liberal heart of the Left Coast has so outraged San Francisco, Berkeley and Oakland officials that the governing bodies of all three cities passed unanimous resolutions declaring today Stand Up for Choice Day and officially backing the counterdemonstration.

Abortion rights advocates who normally save their organizing for contested turf sprang into motion, mobilizing a network of 40 sympathetic Bay Area nonprofit organizations already stinging from President Bush’s reelection in November.

Meanwhile, Dolores Meehan and Eva Muntean -- devout Catholics who organized the Walk for Life West Coast -- say they simply want to reclaim their rightful piece of San Francisco.

“I love this city. I never want to leave it. But every time I travel to a conference, the first thing they ask me is, ‘How can you live there?’ ” said Muntean, 46, who is assistant to the marketing director of Ignatius Press, a Catholic publisher. “I would like to do everything I can to make this city not be thought of as a Sodom and Gomorrah of modern times.”

Meehan, a fourth-generation San Franciscan, and Muntean, a Hungarian immigrant and 11-year city resident, decline to vote in most mayoral elections: They will cast their lot only with fellow abortion opponents, and those are scarce to nonexistent in San Francisco politics.

Mayor Gavin Newsom’s highly publicized parade of same-sex marriages last year alienated them further -- they organized a demonstration against the unions that whetted their appetites for activism. They are convinced that plenty of equally frustrated abortion foes live among them, albeit silently.

Many, they believe, are women who have had abortions and need help healing from the choice they made. This march is for them, Meehan and Muntean say.

To that end, the event’s tenor was toned down. There are no gatherings planned outside clinics. And seasoned abortion opponents have been asked to leave their graphic images of aborted fetuses at home.

Out-of-town speakers will include the president of Democrats for Life of America and vice president of Feminists for Life of America, which has lent the event its trademarked slogan “Women Deserve Better.” African American and Latino ministries, as well as three Bay Area Catholic dioceses, will participate too.

Busloads are expected from Stockton, Fresno, Salinas and beyond.

Seasoned antiabortion groups are applauding.

“I think there are a lot of pro-lifers in San Francisco that are quiet pro-lifers that will be grateful that this event its taking place,” said Mike Spence, vice president of the California Pro-Life Council.

Meehan, a computer specialist, met Muntean a decade ago when both volunteered in an AIDS hospice run by Mother Teresa. It was at an anemic antiabortion rally last January in Sacramento that Meehan decided it was time to take the message home. She pays taxes here, she thought. Why not speak her mind?

“Don’t tell me that I can only be a feminist, that I can only be a pro-woman woman, when I say abortion is OK,” she said.

The women secured permits last year, well before the presidential election. But to abortion rights backers with frayed nerves, the timing couldn’t be worse.

All sides of the debate agree that a second Bush administration, bolstered by Christian conservatives, means the balance on the U.S. Supreme Court could eventually turn against abortion. Even the Democratic National Committee is engaged in a tense debate over whether to soften long-held party positions on abortion rights in order to widen the tent.

“These people are so emboldened,” said Dian Harrison, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, which helped organize the counterdemonstration. “They really do believe they’ve received some kind of mandate or message from Washington, D.C., that it’s OK to do what they do.”

Her opponents’ use of the slogan “Women Deserve Better” isn’t supported by their views, Harrison said. “Their underlying message is women don’t deserve the right to choose an abortion. Women don’t deserve the right to contraception.... Young people don’t deserve the right to age-appropriate sex education information,” she said.

Opinions on abortion are rarely polled in San Francisco, since more than 70% of the population has previously polled in favor, said San Francisco political consultant and pollster David Binder. Faced with more nuanced questions -- on late-term abortion or parental notification -- those opinions shift a bit. Still, Binder said, the decision to march here against abortion seems like a taunt to many liberals.

“It does seem to be an in-your-face attitude that people are concerned about nationwide -- that [Republicans and conservatives] are saying, ‘We’re going to take our 51% and move with it,’ ” he said.

Both sides have pledged to be civil, and police will be out in force to keep the marches separate. But Meehan said she was taken aback at the hostility toward her right to constitutionally protected speech. Muntean added that she believed that city officials have incited counterdemonstrators by backing the opposing event.

Supervisor Tom Ammiano was unapologetic. He sponsored the San Francisco resolution and would speak with other Bay Area officials today in favor of abortion rights and a host of other rights for gays and immigrants that officials believe are related.

“Pro-choice is a democratic guarantee. What they are saying is they want the laws to be changed,” he said. “We felt it was vital that San Francisco be on the record in support of reproductive freedom.”