This past Saturday a group of anti-choice protesters marched on San Francisco City Hall to call attention to Friday's 43rd anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The event, called Walk For Life, drew tens of thousands of people from around the country to San Francisco in order to challenge a woman's right to safe and legal abortions. The March For Life, in turn, brought out a slew of counter protests — including a group of topless activists.
The group, reports Jezebel, is called Femen, and specifically sought to disrupt the speech of David Daleiden. Daleiden, you may remember, is the guy whose highly edited Planned Parenthood videos caused an uproar among anti-choice activists last year. He was scheduled to speak at Saturday's event, and that's when Femen made their move.
"Seconds after Daleiden took the stage," reads a press release from the group, "FEMEN activist Anni Ma set off a personal security alarm from within the crowd, and took her shirt off to reveal 'FREEDOM MEANS CHOICE' painted on her chest. Activist Carly Mitchell joined Ma in chanting 'Fraud! Hypocrite! Liar!' at Daleiden."
"Ducote and Marston climbed up the wheelchair lift and tossed 200 fake subpoenas at Daleiden," continues the group's statement, "featuring his face stamped with 'Fraud,' 'Fake,' and 'Liar.'"
Ducote and Marston were charged with violating a park code prohibiting women from being topless, notes Jezebel, after six rally attendees physically restrained the women (you can watch a partial video of the arrest below).
“I have written to SF Board of Supervisors at length about changing this park code, but they have not risen to the occasion,” notes Ducote.
As we've learned before, SF's current ban on public nudity does not extend to certain sanctioned events, beaches, and permitted protests, and activists have claimed successfully in court that other instances of nude protest might be legal as well.
Update: Houston Public Media is now reporting that David Daleiden, the focus of Femen's protest and featured speaker at Saturday's anti-abortion rally, has been indicted by a Texas grand jury.
Both David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt have been indicted for Tampering with a Governmental Record, which is a felony. Daleidan was also indicted for Prohibition of the Purchase and Sale of Human Organs, meaning he illegally offered to purchase human organs in the video recording. A violation of this section is a Class A misdemeanor.
“These individuals broke the law and committed fraud in order to spread lies about Planned Parenthood," Rochelle Tafolla of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast told Houston Public Media, "and today they’re going to be held accountable for breaking those laws.”
Previously: 30,000 Abortion Opponents To Descend On San Francisco Saturday