SAN FRANCISCO (ChurchMilitant.com) – Pro-lifers on the West Coast will be on the march this weekend.
Route for the Walk for Life West Coast
The 20th annual Walk for Life West Coast is scheduled to take place in San Francisco on Saturday, Jan. 20.
The day’s activities will kick off at 9:30 a.m. with Mass at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, the mother church of the archdiocese of San Francisco.
“Twenty years ago, we didn’t know what to expect,” said Eva Muntean, co-chair of the Walk for Life West Coast, in a press release. “We were overwhelmed with joy by the turnout that first year, which was just a few thousand compared to the tens of thousands who walk now.”
She noted that then-San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom — now California’s governor — and the whole Board of Supervisors held a counter-rally, an event she describes as “poorly attended.”
“Although California has become even more pro-abortion under the law since Roe v. Wade was overturned, we know life and love will triumph in the end,” the pro-lifer added. “We continue to witness to life as we peacefully work to change hearts and minds of those who have been seduced by the lies of the abortion industry.”
Following Holy Mass, participants will rendezvous at nearby Civic Center Plaza from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., then march to Embarcadero Plaza, just over a mile away.
(L to R) Kaya Jones, Dr. Kimberly Henkel, Rev. Clenard Childress Jr.
Speakers include:
Lila Rose, president of Live Action, a human rights nonprofit with the largest digital footprint for the global pro-life movement
Kaya Jones, a Canadian-born singer who had three abortions and is now urging pregnant women to choose life
Dr. Kimberly Henkel, founder of Springs of Love, a ministry encouraging and equipping Catholics to discern and answer the call to foster and adopt, and
Rev. Clenard H. Childress Jr., director of blackgenocide.org, which strives to eliminate abortion from the African-American community
One of the committee organizers of this year’s event and a leader for Life Runners/San Francisco, Enggrid Tjia, offers a poignant explanation for why she continues to march.
She told Church Militant:
I’ve witnessed so many women, post-abortion, who are struggling and suffering with their choice — it is eating them alive. Abortion is not a solution or even health care. It isn’t about healing. Abortion artificially ends innocent life.
Not only do they [women] suffer from the irreversible decision. It’s also the fathers, grandparents, uncles, aunties, living siblings and anyone else with a connection. … Abortion has always brought and is bringing and will continue to bring darkness into society and people’s souls.
Oakland & Los Angeles
Across the bay in Oakland, another march, Standing Up 4Life, will take place on Friday, Jan. 19, from noon to 2 p.m.
In addition to Rev. Childress, speakers include Kevin McGary, founder of Every Black Life Matters, and Rochelle Conner, president of the Frederick Douglass Foundation of California.
In the City of Angels, OneLife LA will hold its 10th annual pro-life event on Saturday, Jan. 20, starting at 11 a.m. A walk through the city’s downtown streets begins at 12:30 p.m., after which participants can enjoy live music and food at Los Angeles State Historic Park.
A requiem Mass for the unborn will be offered at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in the heart of the city at 5 p.m.
Washington
The West Coast pro-life rallies parallel a major rally occurring on the other side of the country this weekend.
The 51st annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., will be held in the nation’s capitol on Friday, Jan. 19 from 1 to 4 p.m. Speakers include Benjamin Watson, a former NFL tight end, and U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.
The March for Life explains that the annual event occurs in support of continued legislative efforts to restrict abortion “until a culture of life is restored in the United States of America.”
Benjamin Watson and Mike Johnson
Tjia told Church Militant she sees abortion as “the work of the devil,” whom she describes as “a thief who comes only in order to steal, kill, and destroy the life of innocent unborn babies.”
Speaking to her determination to fight the evil of abortion, she says, “I won’t stay silent. I will continue to pray, walk, and be a public proponent to defend and protect life from the womb to the tomb, that is, from conception to natural death. … Every human life matters and is precious.”
For more information about the San Francisco march, email info@walkforlifewc.com. For the Oakland march, email life@issues4life.org and for the Los Angeles march, click here.
