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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
You are currently browsing the archives for the Clinic Witness category.
A second police officer consults with Officer Stevens (sitting in the car) while pro-lifers (left) pray outside of Planned Parenthood in Chicago.
Just when things might be looking up for pro-lifers facing Bubble Zones everywhere, since Pastor Walter Hoye’s Bubble Zone arrest was overturned last week, Officer Stevens of the Chicago Police Department reminds us that it’s not over until the law is gone.
Officer Stevens was the first on the scene on Saturday, August 28th. I still don’t know why he was even there.
There were two sidewalk counselors down the street, outside of the fifty foot bubble, and I was standing, motionless, 8-10 feet from the door of the clinic.
Perhaps it’s because several women took the literature I gave them, since the inexperienced “deathscort” standing alone at the doorway wasn’t as quick at pushing the girls through the entrance as some of the others are. Planned Parenthood doesn’t like when the girls carry copies of the lawsuits that have been filed against them into the clinic, I suppose.
August 26, 1995—The League sponsors a sidewalk counseling training seminar at the Radisson Hotel in Lincolnwood, Illinois, where 100 pro-lifers receive instruction on the Chicago Method of sidewalk counseling, which focuses on alerting those entering an abortion clinic of the various lawsuits filed against the facility and its staff.
There are two very different stories you find when you search the news for “ACLU” and “Illinois” today.
The first is a story about the ACLU suing to protect the rights of private citizens to videotape police officers at work. I’m on the ACLU’s side on this because of my experiences with the police and Planned Parenthood deathscorts after the passage of the Chicago Bubble Zone (more on this below).
The second is concerning the challenge filed by the Thomas More Society Pro-Life Law Center (TMS) in Chicago. They are trying to transfer the Parental Notification case from Appellate Court to the Supreme Court in hopes that the Supreme Court will hear the case and allow the 1995 law to finally be enforced. [Continue reading ...]
August 8, 1987—League Director Joe Scheidler joins picketers in Akron, Ohio, who have courageously continued their protests outside the Akron abortuary despite having been shot at the previous month. Joe had convinced the local abortionist meet with him, but the abortionist canceled at the last minute, claiming to have an emergency delivery to perform.
Joe Holland (left) was arrested by Officer Stevens (right) for standing near the entrance to an abortion clinic. Joe's court case was dropped this week.
We at the Pro-Life Action League want to congratulate the Thomas More Society and Joe Holland for their victory against the Chicago Bubble Zone earlier this week.
Joe Holland, a graduate student at Northwestern University, stopped by our office last month. He and I talked about the text of the Chicago Bubble Zone Ordinance [pdf].
I pointed out that invariably the interpretations given by the Planned Parenthood staff and the police who arrive are just wrong (see my previous blog posts here and here). Once we get the police to read the text of the ordinance, they pretty much always realize that what we’re doing is okay and we’re allowed to continue without changing anything.
This discussion followed on the heels of David Avignone’s two police encounters the week before. In those instances the police recognized that he had a right to stand near the doorway of the clinic—even if Planned Parenthood doesn’t like it. This is because the law does not give the door a bubble, it gives people a bubble that we cannot approach within. [Continue reading ...]
Pro-lifers at 2009 Rockford Face the Truth Day [Photo by Sam Scheidler]
On Tuesday, August 10, the League will join forces with the Rockford Pro-Life Initiative for a Face the Truth Day in Rockford, Illinois.
This will be our 7th consecutive year visiting the city, which is unquestionably one of the nation’s abortion hot spots, due to the presence of the particularly bizarre and macabre — even by abortion facility standards — Northern Illinois Women’s Center.
Among the window displays at NIWC are a rubber chicken attached to a Crucifix and a poster showing Jesus giving the middle finger, along with the inscription “Even Jesus Hates You.” [Continue reading ...]
Ann Scheidler at Sidewalk Counseling Seminar, July 24 [Photo by Joe Scheidler]
On Saturday, July 24, I gave a sidewalk counseling seminar at St. Ansgar’s Parish in Hanover Park, Illinois. Greg and Sandy Kascewicz took the initiative to organize and publicize the seminar attended by over three dozen potential sidewalk counselors.
Many people who regularly go out to pray at an abortion clinic are reticent to approach an abortion-bound woman to offer her a chance to choose life.
Admittedly it seems difficult to intrude in someone else’s personal life an decisions. But the pro-lifer who steps out in faith to come to an abortion clinic must realize that he or she has something very valuable to offer a woman who thinks abortion is her only choice. We offer hope, life and real choice.
July 20, 2007—League staff joins Fr. Stephen Lesniewski and 80 children from Immaculate Conception Parish in prayer at the American Women’s Medical Center abortuary in Chicago. Fr. Lesniewski is a dedicated sidewalk counselor who appears in the League’s video “No Greater Joy.”
July 19, 1997—League Director Joe Scheidler exhorts pro-lifers at a week-long demonstration at Martin Haskell’s late-term abortion clinic in Dayton, Ohio to keep up their counseling and prayer efforts. When the pro-life group holds a funeral for six aborted babies, the pro-abortion activists mistakenly pounce on the wrong hearse, outraging the widower.
Escort #1 (center) tells David he must stand 8 feet away from the door, according to the Bubble Law.
Planned Parenthood may have gotten the Chicago City Council to enact a Bubble Zone around the abortion clinics, but time and time again they’ve found that they didn’t get the law they wanted.
This week was another excellent case in point.
Pro-lifers David and Darlene went to the Planned Parenthood location on Division and LaSalle to pray and counsel last Thursday. This location performs abortions six days a week, but usually pro-lifers are only there on Saturdays. This means the “clinic escorts” (”deathscorts”) are also only there on Saturdays. Coming mid-week, then, means pro-lifers can have uninterrupted conversations with clients.
David sent us his account of the day and of the police department’s efforts to “enforce” the Bubble Zone:
[Continue reading ...]