. . . because action speaks louder than words.
League history, NOW v. Scheidler, Action News, Joe Scheidler, League staff
League history, NOW v. Scheidler, Action News, Joe Scheidler, League staff
Q & A on abortion, the unborn child, where we stand on the issues and more
Helping abortion-bound women choose life for their babies
Unmasking the truth about abortion in the public square
Our youth outreach, raising up a new generation of pro-life leaders
Abortion industry converts tell the inside story
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
NOTE: Due to its length, this article is split into four parts.
Our 2004 T-Shirts offer help at Daley Plaza, July 7 [Photo by EJS]
After the Art Institute, our group dispersed for lunch. The Scheidler clan—Joe and Ann with their children Annie, Matthias and me -- walked to Millennium Park for a picnic. A woman on her lunch break read our matching T-shirts and called out to ask what we were doing, saying, "I'm so pro-life!" We told her about the Tour and gave her a copy of the itinerary and invited her to join us later. She said she would see us at our last site when she got off work in the afternoon.
When we arrived at the final site of the day at Adams Street and Wacker Drive, Tim Murphy told us about a different lunchtime reaction to the Tour T-shirts. Tim was having lunch at a café with Jim Finnegan, Dan Gura and Mike Walsh, when two men approached Dan and started lambasting him for wearing the T-shirt, for eating meat, for being a man with an opinion on abortion -- apparently trying to impress some young women in the café. The indomitable Jim Finnegan began to argue with them, and before long the whole place had emptied out!
We set up our signs along Adams Street similar to the previous afternoon on Madison, with abortion signs east of Wacker and the new Jesus and Help signs west of Wacker. The highlight of this site was when the woman we had met in Millennium Park, Kevia, showed up to hold a sign and get her own Face the Truth 2004 T-shirt.
Our final downtown Tour date, July 9, was marked by a significant revelation. Action News readers may remember that two pro-abort ringleaders took turns harassing my father and me during the first two dates of our spring Campus Tour. We knew the identity of one of them, but the other was unknown.
The agitator showed up, alone, at our midday site along Lake Shore Drive at Buckingham Fountain. He caught sight of me and began to harass me from a distance, but I would have none of it. I approached a bicycle cop and showed him a copy of the Spring 2004 Action News, with pictures of the pro-abortion terrorists we faced, and explained my concern at being followed by this guy again, whose name I didn't even know. The officer called the man over and asked for I.D., and I was just able to read his name. After being questioned the fellow walked off and was not seen again during the Summer Blitz Tour.
As we walked across the Loop to our final downtown site, the Kennedy Overpasses, the sky darkened and it began to rain. We don't always cancel because of rain, but we didn't consider it safe to hold the giant signs over the expressway in the rain, and decided to cancel this Tour site.
However, the rain actually worked in our favor. One of our vans had been stalling, and we had arranged to borrow Tim Murphy's van for the rest of the Tour. Canceling the last site allowed us to make the van switch and unload the giant highway signs, which were no longer needed, without working late into the evening.
Jessica (left) and Magdalen Payne hold a new Help sign in Elmhust, July 10
[Photo by EJS]
The morning of Saturday, July 10, we set up at Washington Street and Ogden Avenue in Naperville, the first of three great sites in the western suburbs selected by local captain Greg Dieter. An abandoned gas station on the corner provided an excellent headquarters -- one of many such locations we were blessed with during the suburban phase of the Tour.
As is typical in more affluent areas, the Tour drew hostile reactions from some of the public. One angry driver threw an egg at one of our signs, but missed it, and then threw an apple which hit the sign and ricocheted back into traffic and struck another car. Naperville police immediately pulled over and arrested the driver who threw the apple, and we learned the other driver, who was pro-life, intended to press charges.
[Back to Top]Police nearly made a second arrest when a woman drove up beside our vans, jumped out of her car and started arguing with a volunteer. Ann Scheidler approached and the woman began to scream and wave her finger in Ann's face. A police officer was quickly on the scene and told the woman to step back. She refused, saying she had a right to voice her opinion.
The officer said that's true, but that she doesn't have a right to wave her finger threateningly in someone's face. She continued to argue with the officer who finally said,"We've already arrested one person this morning, and you can be the second." The woman finally backed off, and after complaining some more to another officer, drove away.
Eric Scheidler leads a contingent of the Payne siblings to their posts in Elmhurst, July 10
[Photo by Dan Gura]
Police were called on again to keep the peace at our next stop at Cass and Ogden Avenues in Westmont, where a deranged young man began to shout and wave his arms wildly first at a volunteer and then at Joe Scheidler. A tour volunteer ran over and began videotaping the scene, which usually makes people calm down, but the madman only grew more agitated, and police finally had to intervene.
Before our next site we were treated to a restful lunch at the beautiful home of Jerry and Barbara Urbik in Elmhurst, near our final site at North Avenue and York Road. Several pro-lifers had trouble with the operator of the Hamburger Heaven on the corner. He yelled at Ann Scheidler for using his garbage can, and refused to serve Alberta Rael when she tried to buy everyone on the Tour an ice cream cone. Pro-lifers in the area should buy their hamburgers somewhere else.
After Sunday and Monday off, the Tour resumed Tuesday, July 13 in Rockford. In addition to the core group of Tour coordinators, several stalwarts came from Chicago, including Dan Payne and two of his ten brothers and sisters. Dan took time off from work to come to every Tour site; he was so helpful during the first week of the Tour that for the second week we traded his red participant shirt for a blue coordinator shirt and gave him a walkie-talkie.
The Chicago group joined forces with local Rockford activists for three sites starting in downtown Rockford at 6th and Jefferson Streets. Traffic was lighter than we would have liked at this site, but was more than made up for at the next site at East State Street and Alpine Road, one of the busiest intersections of the entire Tour. We were joined by even more local activists, including a group who had been praying and counseling at Rockford's abortion clinic in the morning.
Lunch hostess Cherolyn Lexfold with daughter Desiree on Perryville Road in Rockford, July 13
[Photo by EJS]
At this site two thugs yelled threats from the cab of their landscaping truck at Dan Payne, who was holding a warning sign north on Alpine. Dan radioed ahead and I was able to get the license plate and a description when they passed, but police failed to respond to our call by the time we left the corner.
We were treated to lunch by Cherolyn Lexfold and her group at the Chapelwood Community Church, who joined us for our final Tour site at East State Street and Perryville Road, another busy intersection. Traffic was so heavy that it was hard to gauge public reaction, but we were encouraged when a man stopped at McDonald's, stocked up on cups of icewater, and passed them out along South Perryville. He told us he believes in what we're doing and hoped we'd make a difference that day.
[Go to Part 3] [Back to Top]