Editor’s Note: This article was written for Mosaic, an independent journalism training program for high school students who report and photograph stories under the guidance of professional journalists.
California under Gov. Gavin Newsom has reaffirmed itself in the past couple of years as a bastion of abortion rights, most recently with a law protecting patients entering clinics. But that has not deterred a religious group in San Jose from continuing a 17-year practice of marching and protesting at local Planned Parenthood sites.
The group gathers daily along the sidewalks of the Planned Parenthood clinic on The Alameda. They are most active on Saturdays, when 10 to 20 protesters slowly march there from several churches. When they arrive some recite the rosary, while others hold posters displaying a human fetus or text saying, “Abortion is murder.”
Their intent is being present and “standing witness,” said Dzung Tran, one of the march’s organizers. Tran is a member of 40 Days for Life, an organization that campaigns against abortion on a global scale. He acknowledges the recent abortion protection actions in California, but adds that “it doesn’t make it right.”
In the past couple of years, Newsom has signed more than a dozen laws protecting abortion rights and has signaled resolve to resist any national anti-abortion legislation that takes shape in the new presidential administration. In late September, he approved increasing criminal penalties for threats against patients entering abortion clinics. That law follows numerous reports of increasing anti-abortion activities, including in California.
The head of Planned Parenthood Los Angeles recently told the Los Angeles Times that clinics there have had to quadruple security measures, with staff often having to call law enforcement to control protesters.
A spokesman for Planned Parenthood Mar Monte, which serves Northern California, said the organization declined to be interviewed for this story.
The 40 Days for Life group has been involved in some controversial demonstrations, including a Walnut Creek incident in 2021, where a fight broke out with abortion rights counter-protesters. But the San Jose group says it takes pains to be non-confrontational, and in fact, the clinics they march to on Saturdays are closed.
They say they sometimes are on the receiving end of honking, catcalls and raised middle fingers from passersby but add that they are undeterred and nevertheless do not engage. Carmen Lizardi-Folley said the counter-protesters’ anger comes from personal pain. “It’s like a telltale sign that there is a sense that they’re doing something wrong,” she said.
Past elections indicate most California voters would disagree. A 2022 proposition to amend the state constitution of California to grant the right to an abortion passed with more than two-thirds of the vote.
But Tran says this sentiment hasn’t been very evident to his group. “There are some people that are critical, but not many,” he said. “We have more supporters than opposition. Opposition just sounds louder and it sounds like they have a lot more.”
Although the protesters hold vigils at other sites, the clinic on The Alameda is their busiest in San Jose. Groups from area churches — including the Legions of Mary (a Vietnamese group from St. Maria Goretti Parish), St. Leo the Great Catholic Church and Queen of Apostles Church— pray throughout the day outside.
Recent college graduate Autumn Cramer attended a protest in October at that site. She said she began an anti-abortion club at Cornell University in response to another club advocating abortion rights.
Cramer said communication between the two sides of abortion issues is important to understanding different perspectives.
“We tried to meet people where they were and understand what their concerns were, and talk about those specific points,” she said. “But it’s a lot harder because there’s emotions involved, so people are not necessarily wanting to hear anything different.”
After saying the rosary with the 40 Days group, Cramer admitted that their actions probably would not affect a woman’s decision, but she believes their prayers will.
“I think our presence here, it’s not us doing anything,” she said. “And we’re not going to be the one that’s changing anything, but rather God is doing everything through us.”
Autumn Alvarez is majoring in journalism at San Francisco State University.