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Home Action News Spring 2004 campus1

Spring 2004 ACTION NEWS | VOL. XXIII NO. 2

NOTE: Due to its length, this article is split into three parts.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

League Clashes with Pro-Aborts on Campus Face the Truth Tour

Pro-Aborts Turn Violent, League Shifts Strategy

by Eric Scheidler

[Masked Pro-Aborts at UIC]

Masked anarchists hold pro-abortion banner in front of UIC’s Circle Center April 7 [Public domain photo]

Inspired by groups in Washington State, Virginia and elsewhere who have brought Face the Truth Tours to college campuses, the Pro-Life Action League launched a monthly Campus Truth Tour this spring, starting with visits to Northwestern and Loyola Universities on March 10. By chance the date coincided with "Abortion Providers Appreciation Day," first declared in 1996 by the radical leftist group Refuse and Resist. The group's Chicago chapter celebrated their macabre holiday by organizing a counter-protest at both campuses.

We did not learn of their plans until the evening before, when a pro-life Northwestern student sent us an e-mailed warning. She had seen flyers and e-mails calling on campus feminists, anarchists, atheists and others to join the counter-protest. When I arrived at the Evanston campus with our signs a group of about seventy pro-aborts had already assembled, and immediately began to chant, "Racist! Sexist! Anti-gay! Born-again bigots, go away!"

Pro-Lifers Refuse To Be Provoked

The local leader of Refuse and Resist quickly identified me as the organizer of the pro-life side and began to harangue me with insults, blasphemies and lies about Joe Scheidler, my father. He and another pro-abort leader took turns following me around badgering me as I distributed signs and set up our display. Their harassment continued for the full ninety minutes of the protest. Fortunately I had spiritually prepared for the day with early morning Mass and confession.

Though outnumbered three to one, our group of stalwart volunteers faced the taunting, cursing crowd of pro-aborts peacefully and prayerfully, and managed to show the ugly truth about abortion to passing cars and pedestrians despite the counter-protesters' attempts to block them with scarcely legible home-made signs. We found that the pro-aborts preferred to stay together in clusters, so by spreading out we were able to keep many of our signs visible.

Pro-Life Kids Not Spared

The counter-protesters did not shrink from taunting my three oldest children, Nate, Sam and Liza, who took the day off from homeschooling to join the protest. They told the kids they had a right to be in school, and that they should believe what they want to believe. Recounting the scene, Sam remarked, "I want to believe in the truth."

[Two Sides at Northwestern Arches]

Radicals disrupt group picture at the Northwestern University arches March 10 [Photo by EJS]

The protest grew more heated near the end of our allotted time when we moved down to the landmark Northwestern arches at Sheridan Road and Chicago Avenue for a group picture. The counter-protesters followed us and tried to disrupt my photography. They hemmed me in with their signs and a large cloth banner that tore apart as I tried to back away. This threw one of them into such a frenzy that he was arrested for disorderly conduct.
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Pro-Life Students Join Campus Tour

Several Northwestern students joined our ranks, holding abortion signs and sharing the pro-life message with passing fellow students. After the demonstration, pro-lifer Paula Emmerth stayed behind for an hour to talk to the pro-abortion students, who were much more respectful and open to dialog once the Refuse and Resist group left campus.

At our lunchtime stop at Loyola University in Chicago we were joined by several members of Pro-Life Loyola University Students (PLUS), and met by a small contingent of counter-protesters. Public support at Loyola was generally greater than at Northwestern, but the Dean of Students came on the scene and seemed disappointed that she couldn't ban us from the public sidewalk.

April Campus Truth Day Terror

The pro-abortion group at Loyola was so small that we didn't know whether to believe their boast that they would confront us throughout our Campus Tour. Shortly before our April 7 Campus Truth Day we learned that a counter-protest was planned for our visits to the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), but we didn't know how many pro-aborts to expect. Still, I took care to get to Mass and confession early that morning.

The day began relatively peacefully at IIT. I arrived early with my daughter Liza for breakfast at the McCormick Tribune Campus Center. The Center was swarming with campus security and Chicago police, and only one entrance was open at the back of the building. They had evidently learned of the protest and counter-protest and were prepared for the worst.

After a quick muffin, I retrieved our van of signs and tried to unload near our meeting place at 33rd and State Streets. I was immediately issued a parking ticket, before I had even managed to finish parking, by an over-zealous Chicago police officer. While he wrote out the ticket, quick-thinking activists Alan Nellis and Mike Busse unloaded the signs.

Pro-abortion harrassment at IIT was concentrated on my father and me, with the same two pro-abort leaders at my elbow, badgering me as before. Several pro-lifers were able to engage in fruitful conversation about the life issues with a group of IIT students who came out to hold signs mocking the very idea of public protest.
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