Sorry I Missed You: Joe Scheidler’s Book In Progress

Posted by Joe Scheidler (June 11, 2010 at 10:23 am)

For the past few months I have been reading old diaries page by page to glean the most interesting and even outlandish activities the League has carried out over its 30 year history.

Nostalgia For Over 30 Years of Pro-Life Activism

Why all this gleaning through the past?

Because I am going to write a book about pro-life activism and all it has meant to me and to the pro-life movement.

It’s fun to read all these books, and even a little nostalgic. “We did have fun, and no harm done,” from the old song, “Thanks for the Memory,” that helped make Bob Hope famous.

Early Activists Still Promoting Life

There were many of us in the early days when we helped get activism started, and as I read through the early 70′s I come across names of people who have died, who are simply lost to the movement, and some whom I can’t remember.

But I also come across the names of many still active in the movement, and some who have moved on to lead other fights, such as Pat Trueman who, for many years, has been a leader in the battle to wipe out pornography, but who got much of his zeal at the League, as one of the best volunteers the League ever had.

I always gave Pat the most unpleasant jobs, the ones I didn’t want to do. He and Laura Canning went onto the campuses with their pro-life display of gruesome pictures, and had to fight just to keep their display from being torn down. They passed out tons of literature on the street corners.

Old Activist Techniques Would Land You in Jail Now

And I’ve come across activities that would slam you in jail now, but which we did with impunity back in those halcyon days.

We went into the abortion clinics to hand out models of unborn babies at ten weeks to the young women in the waiting rooms. One night we pasted a thousand posters on lampposts throughout downtown Chicago. We blacked out the phone numbers of abortion clinics on the L platforms, station after station.

And we had the battles of the billboards, picketed abortionists’ homes, went to their meetings, had spies hidden in their ranks…and much, much more.

“Sorry I Missed You”: A Death Threat?

I already have a title for the book. It’s taken from a card I left at an abortion clinic in California when I went to talk the abortionist out of his grisly trade. He wasn’t at the clinic, so I left my business card on which I wrote: “Sorry I missed you.”

Little did I know this card would be kept for ten years and during my six-week RICO trial in 1998, and used as proof that I was a criminal when it was shown to the jury on a huge screen and presented as a death threat.

A clinic worker said it scared her to death. Used as it was, as proof of my guilt, it scared me to death.

And it got to the jury, who swallowed tons of false evidence throughout the trial.

Sorry I Missed Converting You

So I’m calling the book, “Sorry I Missed You” because I truly am sorry we missed converting so many abortion doctors, so many abortion-bound women, so many students, so many teachers, so many politicians—so many people who need to know what we know: that a human being is the most precious thing on earth, and that many no longer believe in the sanctity of human life.

That’s what I’m sorry we missed because perhaps if I had been able to talk to the abortionist that day, I might, through the grace of God, have converted him. It’s happened.

So, what was used as proof of my guilt as a racketeer will be the book’s title. Reading through the past in these dusty books brings it all back, and I hope it doesn’t take too long to put the book together. It won’t be out for a year or two, so don’t hold your breath.

But I promise you it won’t be dull. And though it won’t make the book of the month club, because many who should read it won’t. But maybe you will.

Face The Truth Visits Evanston On June 16

And now, don’t forget our Truth Day June 16 in Evanston and Lincolnwood. And save a day or two for our Face the Truth Tour, July 9 through 17. Join that little army Henry V speaks of, “we few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” Try it. You may like it. And you’ll be part of history.

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