Tens of thousands rally at Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 25, 2016 – A Nigerian pro-life activist and the man whose undercover videos of Planned Parenthood have roiled Congress and redefined the abortion battleground rallied tens of thousands of people at the 12th annual Walk for Life West Coast Jan. 23.
 
“They tell us the lie that women—in order to have opportunities and in order  for us be successful—we must have abortion rights,” said Obianuju Ekeocha, founder and president of Culture of Life Africa which rejects international aid tied to anti-life initiatives. “I stand here before you not just as a black person or an African person. I stand here before you as a woman to say we should never have to buy success with the blood of our babies.”
 
David Daleiden, the citizen journalist whose undercover videos recorded Planned Parenthood officials trafficking in the parts of aborted babies, was the first speaker at the one-hour rally at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco. The videos led Congress to vote to defund Planned Parenthood in January.
 
“The videos raise the biggest question that Planned Parenthood and their allies cannot answer,” Daleiden said. “That is how on the one hand in our country the humanity of the baby fetus is not considered to be equal enough to our own in order to be totally protected by law. But at the same time it is precisely their equal and identical humanity to our own that makes them so valuable for sale.”
 
At the Walk for Life Mass earlier at St. Mary’s Cathedral, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, referred to the videos and to California’s new assisted suicide law saying, “The big question is, what does this say about us as a society. How can we do this to ourselves?”  The archbishop called upon pro-life supporters to be Jesus’ “light shining in the darkness.”
 
Intermittent rain and a wholesale shutdown of traffic in the financial district for construction of Super Bowl City did not daunt supporters, who filled the plaza, which shortly before the rally was a sea of umbrellas. The sun came out for most of the rally.
 
Other speakers included Rev. Clenard Childress who has spoken at almost every Walk, beginning with the first in 2005. The New Jersey Baptist minister is a national African American voice for the unborn, marriage and family. The rally concluded with testimony by Emmanuel– Jesús Emmanuel Arturo Acha Martínez–a musical icon in the Latin world. “We are here in defense of life. We have to do it. We all have to do it,” Emmanuel said before speaking in Spanish to those gathered.
 
Walk for Life was founded in 2005 by a group of Bay Area residents with the mission of changing the perception that abortion is the answer.