Pro-Life Action under Siege, 1996-1998

by Joe Scheidler

League sidewalk counseling delegation in Brooklyn, July 1997

On January 20, 1996 I headed to Washington for a meeting, then made a day trip to South Bend, IN to address the Knights of Columbus. I was back in Washington the same evening, ready to join the March for Life January 22. Prior to the March I spoke to the Buffalo, NY annual breakfast, and a few days later I spoked at a Kentucky Right to Life rally at the state capitol in Frankfort in support of three pro-life bills. 1996 was off to a furious start!

At the end of January I landed at Ottawa International Airport en route to speak at a Human Life International convention and was detained for questioning by customs officials. Canadian feminists had lodged a complaint with Canadian Immigration in an attempt to keep me from speaking in Canada, citing a 1986 misdemeanor trespassing charge against me in Wilmington, DE. I had to purchase a special visa for $125 to stay in Canada for the convention, and was assured this was the last time I would be allowed into Canada. They allow Canadian abortionist Henry Morgenthaler to roam about killing thousands of unborn babies, but a man who wants to save Canadian kids is banned from the country!

Pro-Life Leaders and "Renegades" Deposed

Throughout March and April lawyers for the National Organization for Women were busy taking depositions from pro-lifers, including some of the radical pro-violence types, in anticipation of a trial in NOW v. Scheidler. They deposed Brian Pabich, a faithful sidewalk counselor in Chicago, as well as Rochelle Shannon, who shot Dr. Tiller in Wichita. KS. They deposed Joe Foreman, a dynamic and peaceful leader in Operation Rescue, and Paul Hill, who killed a doctor and his driver in Pensacola, FL. This was an indication of how they would attempt to inject false claims of violence into the case—a tactic they have continued to this very day (see story).

At the same time Loyola University's law school ran an ad for NOW seeking interns to help do research for the NOW v. Scheidler RICO case. Calls to University President Fr. John Piderit, S.J. and Law School Dean Nina Appel were fruitless. Operation Rescue happened to be in Chicago and joined us in a picket of Loyola's law school on April 3.

On April 20 the League's fifth Meet the Abortion Providers conference was held at the Radisson Hotel in Lincolnwood, IL. Norma McCorvey, the Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade, and Sandra Cano, the Mary Doe of Doe v. Bolton, testified as to how they were manipulated by abortion advocates to bring cases to the courts in order to legalize abortion. Dr. Paul Jarrett of Indianapolis told of his experience as an abortion doctor, and how he changed when he saw a tiny beating heart, and looked at the face of an aborted baby.

Drs. Haywood Robinson and Noreen Johnson, a husband and wife team, explained how they got involved in abortion, and what they do now to champion life. The conference highlight was Mark Bomchill, a former clinic guard who is now pro-life, who revealed how clinic personnel try to hide the fact that many women change their minds about abortion when pro-lifers are present outside the clinic.

In June, when Gloria Feldt was named head of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she quoted me as saying, "Contraception is disgusting." I had picketed Feldt in Phoenix in 1995 when she was director of Planned Parenthood there. I was glad I made an impression on her!

Pro-Lifer Infiltrates Deathscorts

Allison Jurczyk, a Kansas pro-lifer, moved to Chicago early in the year and called me to ask what she could do to help in the battle against abortion. I suggested that she infiltrate the bothersome pro-abortion clinic escorts, or "deathscorts." She joined them and spent several months getting to know them both at the clinic and socially, while providing intelligence on which clinics they planned to "guard" so we could plan accordingly. When Allison decided to return to Kansas in June, she revealed on WYLL radio what she had learned as a pro-life spy, including how relatively normal the pro-abortion activists were away from the abortion clinic.

Sandy Rios, host of the popular Christian radio talk show Sandy Rios Live invited me to take over as host of her WYLL radio program while she was in China. I handled the program for three days, with the assistance of engineer Steve Bynum, a fellow Notre Dame alum. After that first experience Sandy frequently called on me to fill in for her. It was a great opportunity to interview many prominent pro-lifers on the program.

Democrat Delegates Face the Truth

In late August, the Democrats held their national convention at Chicago's United Center. We took advantage of the opportunity to educate visiting delegates despite a convention "buffer zone" and designated "protest areas." We held huge graphic abortion signs on the overpasses of the expressways. Rev. Pat Mahoney of Christian Defense Coalition joined us at the Art Institute for a march to Grant Park with Baby Malachi signs. Members of Refuse and Resist tried to surround me while I was being interviewed on TV, but police intervened.

Chicago pro-life stalwart Dick Walsh organized a massive demonstration to show Democrat delegates how strong the pro-life movement really was. Over a thousand demonstrators, with a police escort, marched from the parking lot to a designated "protest pit," where speakers rallied the crowd. Someone dressed in a grim reaper outfit made the news the next day—but the thousand ordinary citizens championing life were ignored.

Shortly after Labor Day we learned that President Clinton planned to honor Joseph Cardinal Bernardin with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. We immediately faxed the Cardinal asking him to turn down the award in protest of Clinton's staunch pro-abortion stand and announced our opposition to the Award in a press release. Bernardin responded that the award was being presented to him as a representative of the Church, not to himself personally, and that he would use the occasion to speak against abortion.

This he did, but Clinton used the photo-op to solidify his Catholic support. In November, Clinton was reelected president, and a week later Cardinal Bernardin died of pancreatic cancer. To his credit, his final months were a testimony to the merit of suffering, and to the respect due every life until God chooses to end it.

Graphic abortion signs at the Supreme Court, Jan. 22, 1997

1997: Another Year of Activism

I escaped Chicago's brutal January temperatures with a trip to Phoenix, AZ to address a rally organized by Catherine Sabelko of Children of the Rosary. Over 5,000 pro-lifers gathered to commemorate the babies who had died since 1973. I recounted a series of recent pro-life victories to show how our hard work exposing the reality of abortion is succeeding.

At the 1997 March for Life on January 22, the League and Collegians Activated to Liberate Life recruited thirty marchers to expose the reality of abortion with large Malachi signs spread out across Constitution Ave. The signs were also displayed along the route for Bill Clinton's inauguration parade and at Lafayette Park across from the White House.

SpeakOut Illinois' annual commemoration of Roe v. Wade featured Janet Parshall, nationally syndicated radio talk show host, and Annie Scheidler, youth activities coordinator for the Pro-Life Action League and the dynamic vice-president of Pro-Life Loyola University Students (PLUS).

In January 1997, we discovered that the University of Chicago Hospital was using the organs of babies they aborted for research, including transplanting retinal tissue from an aborted baby into the eyes of an 80-year-old woman suffering from macular degeneration. Among the activists at the League's February 5 protest was a man who had been blind since birth who said that he would never want a baby to die so that he could see.

In March, Federal Judge David Coar ruled that two classes could become party to the already ten-year-old NOW v. Scheidler RICO case. All women's health centers at which abortions are performed and all women who are not NOW members, but who have used or might in the future use the services of women's health centers that provide abortions, were now plaintiffs in the case. NOW claimed to be seeking injunctive relief for all abortion clinics.

I gave three talks at the April conference of Human Life International in Minneapolis. The conference was marred by Archbishop Harry Flynn's refusal to celebrate the opening Mass at St. Paul Cathedral after he heard unfounded charges that Fr. Paul Marx had made anti-Semitic statements. Flynn insisted that a statement be read at the Mass cautioning pro-lifers to avoid anti-Semitism. The pro-aborts made hay over this unfortunate conflict and protested outside the cathedral by holding a mock "mass" with spaghetti and wine. Nonetheless, over two thousand faithful joined the candlelight Rosary procession from the cathedral to the state capitol.

In 1997, we turned our annual spring luncheon into a fruitful all-day seminar with Jim Sedlak of STOPP Planned Parenthood, and we presented the Protector Award to Pastor Kenneth Bonner of Christian Fellowship Church.

Promoting Sidewalk Counseling

I had an opportunity to speak with Justice Antonin Scalia at a banquet in Mundelein, IL and asked him how the court could uphold buffer zones around abortion clinics. I told him that that very morning my wife Ann had talked a woman out of an abortion at a Chicago abortion facility. Scalia seemed surprised that pro-life counselors actually dissuade women from having abortions. He thought our main reason for going to abortion clinics was to make our presence felt and to assure ourselves that we are doing something positive. I told him the police often interpret the Supreme Court's bubble zone rulings to apply to the entire nation. He said they are absolutely wrong, and that if the police set up a bubble zone where there is no ordinance authorizing it, they could be sued.

In July six members of the League traveled to Brooklyn, NY to study the philosophy and techniques of Msgr. Philip Reilly, founder of Helpers of God's Precious Infants. Ann and I, Tim Murphy, Julie McCreevy, Kathy Mieding and Jim Finnegan spent three days with Monsignor at the Monastery of the Precious Blood, where he is chaplain. Msgr. Reilly and his co-worker Sr. Dorothy Rothar taught us how they reach out to abortion-bound mothers. We spent several hours in front of an abortion clinic in Brooklyn, observing Monsignor in action and praying from the Helpers prayer book. We decided that the League should set up a Helpers chapter in Chicago, and Julie McCreevy agreed to head it up.

Battles on Many Fronts

At the beginning of August I flew to Dublin, Ireland to speak at a three-day Gospel of Life conference organized by Family Life of Ireland. While there I joined a prayer vigil outside the Mary Scopes Clinic, which arranges to send women to England for abortions since abortion is illegal in Ireland.

As soon as I was back in the States, we protested the Lilith Fair, a feminist-organized musical event at the World Music Theatre in Tinley Park, IL. Planned Parenthood had a booth at the Fair and distributed condoms to concert-goers. We held graphic signs all along the roadway leading to the parking lot. None of the 30,000 attendees got in without first seeing the reality of abortion.

With the NOW v. Scheidler trial looming in the coming spring, Americans United for Life Legal Defense Fund, which had been underwriting much of the expense of the lawsuit, decided that they lacked the resources to handle the trial. Meanwhile, Tom Brejcha's law firm had given him an ultimatum to either quit the case or quit the firm. Tom refused to abandon us, and together we set up the Pro-Life Law Center in downtown Chicago, with office space for Tom and mountains of documents donated by a generous pro-life landlord.

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