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A Catholic high school held an anti-abortion assembly and it backfired spectacularly

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Archbishop Riordan High School, San Francisco, California.

Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco, California held an assembly for all students on Friday that was presented by Life Training Institute and featured speaker Megan Almon.

The institute's goal is to equip "Christians to make a persuasive case for life" through "pro-life apologetics presentations in Catholic and Protestant high schools, universities, and worldview conferences."

But the idea of sitting through a pro-life presentation didn't appeal to the vast majority of students and a few minutes into the presentation, they began to walk out. A few were prompted by Almon comparing the number of abortions in the United States to deaths in the Holocaust. Almon also discussed how embryos should be considered people who are just as valuable as those sitting in the auditorium.

Some female students were upset because it was the first year that the school was co-ed. It was previously an all-boys school and was integrated by girls who attended the recently closed Mercy High School. "It's just so frustrating," Clare, a transfer from Mercy, told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's been so hard to go from an environment of female empowerment to someone telling me what I can and can't do with my body."

Only a few dozen of the 800 students who attended the assembly remained to hear the entire presentation. Video from the walkout went viral on TikTok.

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"I don't know why some people say Gen Z is going to ruin society. As a millennial, thank you for your service to Earth," one commenter wrote.

"It's a health decision between a woman and her doctor, it doesn't need to be discussed in school like this," another commenter added. The school said in a statement that the assembly was all part of a Catholic school education.

"The assembly was an opportunity to come together in order to learn more about the dignity of human life. We recognize that members of our school community, whether they are Catholic or not, have different viewpoints on this topic," interim president Tim Reardon said in a statement. "We appreciate that those with different views shared those respectfully today. We offered an alternative safe venue for students."

In anticipation of some blowback, the school sent an email to parents preparing them for the speaker.

"The administration is aware that not all Riordan students are Catholic. We understand that we live in a society in which people have strong, disparate opinions about all the categories ascribed to this theme … Our speaker will be here simply to explain the Catholic position, primarily with regard to abortion. We ask that all students listen respectfully to the speaker, who is nationally recognized for her work on this subject."

Parents of the students shouldn't be too shocked over the school having an antiabortion presentation because they sent their kids to a Catholic school; the Catholic church is one of the most prominent pro-life organizations in the world.

However, the students are at the age when the issue of abortion and who has the right to control their bodies is of utmost importance. So it was brave of them to walk out and to face potential punishment over having to hear someone telling them to relinquish control of their reproductive rights.

Their decision was also powerful given the war on Roe v. Wade currently happening in America's court system.

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Did you hear about the 'walk up' — not walkout? It's a big fail.

I woke up on March 14 to students walking out of school in protest of America's inaction on gun violence.

Fed-up student after fed-up student filled my television screen, and I found myself getting a little teary-eyed as I watched them stand together in solidarity outside their schools. These kids have seen and experienced far too much.

I perused my Facebook feed and saw messages of support and encouragement to kids participating in the National School Walkout.

I also encountered various iterations of this:

On March 14, encourage students to walk up. Walk up to the kid who sits alone at lunch and invite her to sit with you. ...
Posted by Amy Flynn on Thursday, March 8, 2018

Such posts, advising kids to put their energies into being kinder instead of engaging in civil protest, are accompanied by the hashtag #WalkUpNotOut.

The gist of #WalkUpNotOut is that protest is pointless and kids should try to be more inclusive in order to stop gun violence. The premise of the argument is that America's epidemic of school shootings isn't about gun policy, it's about kids feeling excluded, lonely, and unloved.

The implication? If kids would just be nicer to one another, this issue would be solved.

The message has gotten widespread support — particularly among gun rights advocates — but also among idealistic peacemakers drawn to anything advocating kindness.

I get it. Kids who have healthy friendships and support systems don't generally decide to mass murder their classmates. That seems like a logical point.

However, it's a deflection from the issue at hand — and a potentially dangerous one at that.

What #WalkUpNotOut basically says is, "You might get shot at school because you're not being nice enough."

The problem with the message of "walk up, not out" is that it's essentially victim-blaming. It's like telling a domestic abuse sufferer that if she'd just been nicer to her abuser, she wouldn't have been hit. That the issue of school shootings isn't really about shootings, but about being nicer.

Image via Saul Loeb/Getty Images.

As one Facebook user pointed out, it inadvertently sends the wrong message to the wrong people:

No doubt, all of us could be kinder to our fellow humans. But there have been bullies, loners, and outcasts forever. There are bullies, loners, and outcasts in other countries. Kids being unkind to one another is not a uniquely modern nor uniquely American phenomenon. But regular school shootings are.

I'm not saying kids shouldn't be kinder. But kindness alone doesn't solve our unique gun violence problem.

I’ve not been in a single school in the past decade that has not utilized character education and had inclusion messages plastered all over the walls. Many schools have character curriculums designed to help students be good citizens, good friends, and good people in general. Such programs can have a positive impact on students and schools.

But are they the magic answer to gun violence? No. Of course kids should be kind. Of course we should be encouraging kids to reach out to kids who are lonely. But what about when that's not enough?

Photo by Nicholas Kamm/Getty Images.

We have too many guns and they're too easy to get. That's the only difference between our kids and kids around the world.

One could make the argument that America has a "niceness" problem, but unkindness is a universal human reality. We are not more kindness-challenged than other places in the world, and messages like #WalkUpNotOut aren't the answer to our unique gun violence problem. Other countries think we're ridiculous because of our gun culture. Honestly, I'm sitting here thinking the same thing.

Kids can "walk up" to be nicer to one another and they can "walk out" to advocate for gun control legislation. Many of these teens are soon-to-be voters who've been traumatized by active shooter drills their entire lives. Let's not squash their civic engagement with platitudes about niceness. They deserve better than that.

If you're searching for a defense of the students' actions, look to Pence's speech.

On Sunday, a group of about 150 students walked out during Vice President Mike Pence's commencement address at the University of Notre Dame.

Conservative outlets blasted the silent protest as a form of intolerance to opposing views and an affront to free speech. But according to Mike Pence's own speech, that actually couldn't be further from the truth.

Photo by Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP.

In his address, Pence railed against political correctness, intolerance to others' opinions, and people trying to impose their views on others.

"Far too many campuses across America have become characterized by speech codes, safe zones, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness — all of which amounts to nothing less than the suppression of freedom of speech."

It's undeniably weird advice to get from someone who has — in his 16 years in politics — worked hard to enshrine his own personal views into law and create barriers to others' ability to live their lives.

In early 2015, as governor of Indiana, Pence signed a bill into law allowing businesses to turn away customers for being LGBTQ. As a member of Congress, Pence co-sponsored a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage because he doesn't believe in it. In 2016, he tried to ban Syrian refugees from being resettled in Indiana. He also signed a bill requiring people who have abortions to bury or cremate aborted fetuses because of his personal stance on abortion. One woman was even sentenced to 20 years in prison under a Pence-signed law for "feticide" after self-inducing an abortion.

While it's his right to hold those personal beliefs about abortion, marriage, and Syrian refugees, using the law to impose those views on others (and take away their right to make decisions based on their beliefs) is exactly what he used his speech to say politicians shouldn't do.

Photo by Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune via AP.

After all, what is "political correctness" if not the idea that we should enforce a right and a wrong way of thinking or acting? You'd think that someone opposed to that concept wouldn't use the law to impose their own personal views on others — but that's what Pence has spent a career doing.

The students aren't "snowflakes" for walking out, either — they're simply taking Pence's advice to heart.

A Notre Dame professor offered a perfect defense of the students' actions, telling BuzzFeed writer Anne Helen Petersen (anonymously) that the walkout was a "powerful choice of protest in literally standing up for [what] they believe is right for them, for social justice and civil rights, and for Notre Dame."

— (@)

The best defense came from Pence himself, speaking in support of "free expression," which includes things like, yes, peaceful protests.

Pence offered an impassioned defense of "the time-honored tradition of free expression" and urged students not to allow those who wish to suppress that speech to "be met with silence."

GIFs from University of Notre Dame/YouTube.

Ironically, it's the people who say the students should have stayed seated — some going so far as to say students who walked out should have their degrees withheld — are the ones promoting an "increasing intolerance" to opposing and suppressing free speech.

Luckily, the student protesters heeded the words of the man whose speech they missed by not allowing themselves to be silenced.

Photo by Santiago Flores/South Bend Tribune via AP.

Congrats, Notre Dame class of 2017 for your academic achievements and your commitment to free speech.

These women didn't just talk the talk. They walked the walk.

Nov. 7, 2016, could have been a day like any other in France. Except it wasn't because thousands of women had a plan.

At precisely 4:34 p.m., all over the country, thousands of women walked out of their jobs. It wasn't violent. There wasn't a big scene. But it was lively and organized and meant to prove something big.

Feminist publication Les Glorieuses planned this organized protest, rallying women to stand up against France's deplorable gender pay gap: Men in France make 15.5% more than women.

In the U.S., women earn around 80% of what men earn. Women of color earn even less. In the U.K., overall, women make 24% less than men a year. Women in Iceland overall make 72 cents for every dollar a man makes. In Mexico, women reportedly earn 60% (just over half) of what men bring in.

The publication figured out that women were essentially working for free after 4:34 p.m. on Nov. 7, 2016 until the end of the year. So at 4:34 pm, women left the office.

Image by Thomas Samson/AFP/Getty Images.

City leaders got onboard in a show of solidarity too.

Anne Hidalgo, the city’s first female mayor, suspended a meeting of the city council at 4:34 p.m. at Paris City Hall. Staff at the famous Musée d’Orsay and several newspapers also stopped working at that precise time.

It was their brave way of saying: We're not standing for this any longer.

Image by Musée d'Orsay/Twitter.

The organizers of this event say they were inspired by a similar protest held in Iceland on Oct. 24, 2016.

Women in Reykjavik and across Iceland left their jobs at 2:38 p.m. on the 24th for similar reasons. Rebecca Amsellem, founder of Les Glorieuses, told VICE News the French movement was, "of course strongly inspired by the Icelandic women.”

It also seems that Les Glorieuses tapped into a momentum that was there for the taking. There are over 13 million women who work in France. They make up almost half (48%) of the country's entire workforce. And now, many of these women are no longer sitting by — literally. They are standing up and walking out in a beautiful display.

What started as a local movement with a Facebook invite to make their voices heard, turned into a much bigger statement.

This is a powerful example of woman saying: Enough is enough.

Image by Martine Tekaya, with permission.

The walkout attracted worldwide attention, and it appears to be the start of a larger conversation that could change things in a big way. People shared images and voiced their support on social media using the hashtag #7novembre16h34.

Prime Minister Manuel Valls and Education Secretary Najat Vallaud-Belkacem also noticed. Valls tweeted, "Equality between women and men must be at the heart of the Republic. At all times."

And this week, as folks mourn Hillary Clinton's loss, France's walkout hits home for women in the U.S. in an especially poignant way too.

The realization that women are still fighting an uphill battle has never rung more true than it does now that Donald Trump won the presidential election.

What we see in this walkout, though, is that women know how to fight. France is proof. Iceland is proof. The U.S. is proof. We are strong, and with effort and organization, we can change things.

Let's hope this is the beginning of a much-needed movement that leads to change — and not just in France. Because we know the gender pay gap is a worldwide problem. Merci beaucoup, ladies!