Lee Heidhues 10.22.2021
Several hundred students at San Francisco’s Riordan High School displayed a lot of moxie when they walked out of a speech by an anti-abortion propagandist.
These right to life people are the most insidious and reactionary know nothings.
Anti-abortion crusaders, backed by powerful Church leaders such as San Francisco’s Archbishop, want to curtail a woman’s right to control their own bodies and spend their lives foisting their abhorrent political views 24/7.
The pro-Choice movement needs to stand firm and beat down these anti-abortion zealots. It is reassuring that America’s young people appear to be fully aware of what’s at stake and are aggresively making known their point of view. Right here in San Francisco.
Excerpted from San Francisco Chronicle 10.22.2021
Hundreds of students at Archbishop Riordan High School staged a walkout Friday during an all-school assembly that featured a prominent antiabortion speaker.
About five minutes into the presentation, during which staff members patrolled the doors, students at the Catholic high school exited the theater and walked into the gym, since school rules don’t permit them to leave campus. A few dozen of the school’s more than 800 students remained in the theater for the entire presentation.
The school’s argument — that the presentation was in line with Catholic teaching — didn’t sit well with students and parents alike — who said that politically, the issue is much larger than abortion.
Parent Judy Walgren said that if the assembly was really about “Catholic themes of the dignity of human life” and not politics, then “where are the speakers about the death penalty? Where are the speakers about how you should go out into the streets in the Tenderloin and wash the feet of the poor and destitute?”
The speaker, Megan Almon, works with the Life Training Institute, a program that focuses on teaching people who are antiabortion to “persuasively defend their views in the marketplace of ideas,” and sends its speakers to Catholic and Christian schools everywhere, its website says. The Catholic Church’s official stance is also antiabortion.
The assembly comes on the heels of women’s marches across the nation, including one in San Francisco, in support of reproductive rights as conservative states like Texas attempt to restrict abortion rights — timing that was frustrating to Riordan parents and students.
Almon’s speech also follows San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone intensifying his public campaign to convince House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a fellow Catholic, to renounce her support of abortion rights. Cordileone, who oversees the diocese’s Catholic schools, including Riordan, is launching $50,000 digital ad in which he asks viewers to pray and fast as a sign of support, calling the effort the Rose and Rosary for Nancy Campaign.
Some Riordan students were particularly upset that Almon was invited to speak during the school’s first year as a co-ed institution — Riordan had previous been an all-boys school.
Riordan students take a walk to protest anti-abortion speaker
Lee's Perspective 