Zoning Case on Planned Parenthood Aurora Filed in State Court

Posted by League Staff (February 15, 2008 at 3:01 pm)

On February 13, League attorneys filed a zoning case [PDF] against Planned Parenthood and the City of Aurora Illinois State Court. This filing comes a month after the Aurora Zoning Board of Appeals refused to hear the case.

The case, brought by five residents of the nearby Oakhurst neighborhood and Fox Valley Families Against Planned Praenthood (FVFAPP), will finally call Planned Parenthood to task for their lies and deceit. League Communications Director and FVFAPP organizer Eric Scheidler remarked, “The City will be forced to admit what they knew when, and PP will be forced to give an account for their lies to City officials and the community.”

Thomas Brejcha and Peter Breen of the Thomas More Society Pro-Life Law Center in Chicago in Chicago, which is representing residents in the case, explain that the rights of Aurora citizens have been violated in three ways:

1. Planned Parenthood’s deceit (perhaps with the City’s complicity) robbed citizens of their basic right to establish the kind of community they wish to live in. City law demands citizens be informed when businesses like PP come into town, but PP skirted those laws.
2. By robbing citizens of any voice in determining what kind of community Aurora would become, citizens’ freedom of speech was violated.
3. Finally, citizens were robbed of the protection meant to be afforded them under the city zoning code. You and I don’t have the resources to stop PP from putting abortion centers wherever they want to. That’s what the zoning code is for, but when PP lies and the city looks the other way, a higher governmental authority must be called to action.

Said Scheidler, “We are very excited to finally have the facts of this case brought into the cold light of day where they belong.”

News Coverage and Related Links

• “Anti-abortion group complains about process for Planned Parenthood”—Aurora Beacon, February 14, 2007
• City of Aurora and Planned Parenthood are sued over alleged zoning violations at clinic site—Chicago Tribune, February 14, 2007
• Fox Valley Families Against Planned Parenthood—Local group dedicated to fighting PP of Aurora

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