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Home Action News Special Issue 2008 Ground Zero (6 of 7)

Special Issue 2008 ACTION NEWS | VOL. XXVII No. 1

This Special Report on the Pro-Life Action League's battle in Aurora, Illinois is divided into seven parts.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7

The League at Ground Zero, cont.

Three Deeply Flawed "Investigations"

It was clear that Mayor Weisner had been pulling for Planned Parenthood all along. His reference to "three investigators" made that all too clear—as did the many critical omissions and irrelevancies in their reports.

Protest outside City Hall

Pro-lifers picket outside City Hall on Oct. 9, 2007 after Mayor Weisner's betrayal [Photo by EJS]

The first investigator turned out to be Richard Martens. After he had been replaced over conflict of interest concerns, the mayor secretly told him to continue his work anyway. Martens did little more in his report than describe the documents we already knew about, and note that more investigation would be required. He said nothing about the special use permit.

The second investigator was Phillip Leutkehans, the attorney picked by the aldermen, who noted that he did not have access to many crucial documents or statements from key city staff. His report appeared to have been completed in great haste, riddled with typos and "redline" text. He offered only the shallowest dismissal of the special use permit question.

The third investigator was State's Attorney John Barsanti, who was asked to look into criminal wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood. This was nothing more than an attempt by the mayor to pad his case; nobody had accused Planned Parenthood of criminal wrongdoing, but rather civil fraud—which Barsanti admitted was outside his jurisdiction.

A Dark Day: Planned Parenthood Opens

We were blindsided by the mayor, and it would take days for my attorneys and me to digest and respond to the fatal flaws in these three reports. Meanwhile, we had to act to either keep Planned Parenthood closed or begin a new phase of our campaign to deal with their opening.

On October 2, pro-lifers gathered early at the Planned Parenthood site to mourn the opening of the facility we had been fighting for two months. Minutes before the 10 a.m. opening, attorney Peter Breen filed an appeal at the Zoning Board of Appeals in City Hall. Under state law, this should have initiated an immediate stay of the occupancy permit. It didn't happen. Planned Parenthood opened their doors.

Pro-Life Campaign Shifts Gears

Our only consolation when Planned Parenthood finally opened was that the delay apparently disrupted their ability to get up and running quickly with their abortion operation. They didn't begin to actually see patients for several days, and abortions did not begin for at least two weeks.

My Vigil team and I decided the time had come to suspend the exhausting round-the-clock Vigil and concentrate on providing prayer and sidewalk counseling at Planned Parenthood during all their open hours. The Earls dubbed this project "Life Support" and they began contacting local churches with the help of Mary Vilim and Mary Faye Vasen to find sponsors for all the days of the month when Planned Parenthood would see clients.

A week after the opening, pro-life citizens packed the City Council for the fourth time to denounce Mayor Weisner's betrayal. Thanks to the generosity of the League's donors, I was able to obtain the technology needed to transmit live reports from the City Council Chambers to the Families Against Planned Parenthood website, allowing hundreds more pro-lifers to follow the meeting. Ten-year-old Tess Foral received a standing ovation for her comments, during which she asked, "Mr. Mayor, is it okay to lie?"

Sidewalk Counseling Seminar at Our Lady of Mercy

Trainees at Ann Scheidler's Nov. 17, 2007 sidewalk counseling training seminar [Photo by EJS]

Clinic Witness Commences

From the time that Planned Parenthood opened, our Life Support crew had stationed themselves across the roadway from their parking lot, along the edge of a vacant lot owned by Safeway Corporation. Planned Parenthood staff were infuriated, and tried to get the police to order us off. They even erected "No Trespassing" signs in the lot, without Safeway's knowledge. Finally, they began a nationwide phone campaign to convince Safeway to ban the pro-life prayer witnesses.

On October 11, Safeway bowed to pro-abort pressure and erected a chain-link fence around the lot—a situation which endangered our counselors by depriving them of room to avoid traffic. Hundreds of pro-lifers in the area responded by turning in their Dominick's "Fresh Values" cards, since Dominick's is owned by Safeway.

On October 20, my mother Ann conducted the first Fox Valley Families clinic witness training seminar at Holy Angels Church to give two dozen newly activated pro-lifers the tools they need to help mothers and fathers choose life for their babies. We held the next training seminar less than a month later.

Alderman Seeks Parental Notification

When pro-life Aurora Alderman Rick Lawrence first learned about Planned Parenthood coming to town, he was shocked to discover that his two teenage daughters would be able to get medical care there—or even get an abortion—without his consent. He sought to remedy that situation by sponsoring a citywide parental notification ordinance, with co-sponsers Aldermen Richard Irvin and Chris Beykirch.

On October 23 Fox Valley Families had made our fifth trip in a row to the City Council to advocate for Lawrence's ordinance and speak out further on the harm that Planned Parenthood was now doing to our community. However, the ordinance got held up in the Government Operations Committee, and only made it to the Council later in the watered-down form of a Parental Nofication Resolution sent to the Capitol in Springfield, which passed 11-0 on November 27.

"It's Not Over. We're Here for Life."

Despite the success we were having getting prayer coverage and training sidewalk counselors, I could sense that the pro-life community was badly in need of a boost. So I called together a team of local leaders and planned a rally for October 27, under the theme, "It's not over. We're here for life." Over 1,000 pro-lifers attended the peaceful rally, which featured a Jericho-style prayer walk, two massive picket lines, a "Life Tour" along New York Street, and a display of memorial crosses which rally participants had decorated on behalf of babies lost to abortion—crosses which were later desecrated by City workers.

Eric Scheidler and Jason Craddock speak with Police Chief Powell

Police Chief Powell (left) harangues Eric Scheidler and Jason Craddock [Photo by Sam Scheidler]

The morning would have been a complete success were it not for the outrageous intervention of Police Chief Bill Powell and Corporation Counsel Alayne Weingartz. As Stand True's Bryan Kemper began to offer a concluding talk, some pro-lifers crossed the street to hear better, since Safeway's new chainlink fence around the vacant lot restricted the open space. Powell and Weingartz came on the scene and started to order the pro-lifers back across the street, saying they were violating an ordinance against "residential picketing", though few of them even had signs at that point.

Police squad cars then blocked the street, which we all interpreted as an open invitation to move into the street to hear the talk. We were mistaken; Powell had ordered the squads there to help herd people back off the residential east side of Oakhurst Drive. I tried to get the chief to talk to attorney Jason Craddock, who was on the scene, but he refused. Some pro-lifers later declared that Powell and Weingartz seemed bent on inciting a riot. But we maintained our peace.

Planned Parenthood Scared Off Campus

The big October 27 rally set the tone for the fall and winter months. We were determined to stick it out, protesting, praying and counseling at Planned Parenthood.

A powerful vindication of that spirit came on November 12 when Planned Parenthood canceled a Q&A event at Waubonsee Community College on hearing that the Pro-Life Action League would be there. As usual, they cited "safety concerns", but we knew the truth—they didn't want to have to answer questions from the pro-life public about their fraud and deceit.

Our pro-life determination was also on display the following day when we visited the City Council—for the sixth time—to speak out against the confusion wrought by Chief Powell and Counsel Weingartz at the "We're Here for Life" rally. In a blatantly staged maneuver, Alderman Shakita Hart-Burns asked Powell to explain his actions, and he stood up to rail against how uncooperative we pro-lifers were being and assured us that from now on he wouldn't be so easy on us.

[Go to Part 7]
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