Thousands of Pro-Life Marchers Pack San Francisco for 15th Annual ‘Walk for Life’

Tens of thousands of pro-life marchers packed the streets of downtown San Francisco on Saturday to partake in the 15th annual Walk for Life on the West Coast against abortion.

The sea of demonstrators carried signs with phrases such as “Abortion is Murder,” “I Am the Pro-Life Generation,” and “Protect the Innocent” as they made the journey down San Francisco’s Market Street to protest the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which made abortion legal in all 50 states.

why we #walkforlife

we love babies. yes, we do! 👶
we love babies. how about you? #prolife chant 🎶 #chooselife #standupforlife pic.twitter.com/gVbbmOr6Bv

— Walk For Life (@walkforlife) January 27, 2019

Fr. Frank Pavone, the national director of Priests for Life, posted a video on Twitter Saturday showing the thousands of demonstrators congregating at Civic Center Plaza for a rally shortly before the march:

The Walk for Life West Coast is getting underway… #prolife #abortion #unborn #walkforlifewc @walkforlifewc. pic.twitter.com/b2t4woMZby

— Fr. Frank Pavone 🇺🇸 (@frfrankpavone) January 26, 2019

Patricia Sandoval, a former Planned Parenthood employee turned pro-life activist, told those gathered in the plaza that abortion is harmful to both women and unborn children who “do not have a voice.”

“Today, the unborn do not have a voice. Today, men do not have a voice. Today, parents do not have a voice,” Sandoval told the crowd of marchers. “Our nation is wounded by abortion. I’m not here to take your rights away.”

But not everyone at the march was protesting abortion. Dozens of pro-abortion activists also gathered at Market and Powell streets, with some wearing red capes and white bonnets from The Handmaid’s Tale to counterprotest the pro-life demonstrators.

“I oppose these Christian fascists and their aim to not only deprive women of their abortion rights but even contraception,” said Reiko Redmonde, a pro-abortion counterprotester from Berkeley.

The gathering took place just over one week after the March for Life in Washington, DC, on the National Mall. The annual march in D.C. has occurred every year since the Supreme Court legalized abortion under Roe v. Wade in 1973.