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News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
You are currently browsing the archives for the Clinic Witness category.
League Director Joe Scheidler (right) at the Summer of Mercy 2.0 [Washington Times photo by Pratik Shah]
Twenty years ago pro-life activists from across America met in Wichita, Kansas for the “Summer of Mercy.” A protest of late term abortionist George Tiller was the incentive for holding this gathering in Wichita, with pickets, marches, prayer vigils and rescues. Planned as a seven day event, it turned into seven weeks and spurred the growth of pro-life activism nationwide.
To commemorate the 1991 Summer of Mercy, and reinvigorate the movement, pro-lifers gathered in Germantown, Maryland last week for Summer of Mercy 2.0. This time it was centered on late term abortionist LeRoy Carhart.
Carharet left his abortion center in Nebraska hoping to replace Tiller in Wichita, but Tiller’s family said no. He then tried to work in Indiana, but a law was quickly passed to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks. Then he found a small clinic in Germantown, Maryland where there is no restriction on performing late term abortions.
To show solidarity with the activists, League National Director Joe Scheidler joined the “Summer of Mercy 2.0″ in Maryland on August 1st and 2nd to pray with the gathering and talk on the growing success of the prolife movement, and need to renew our own dedication to the cause of the unborn. He said we must be determined to convert the nation to respect for human life. [Continue reading ...]
Pro-life activists at 2010 Face the Truth Day in Rockford, IL [Photo by Sam Scheidler]
On Tuesday, August 9, the League will join forces with the Rockford Pro-Life Initiative for a Face the Truth Day in Rockford, Illinois.
This will be our 8th 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.
Window displays at NIWC in recent years have included a rubber chicken attached to a Crucifix and a blasphemous poster showing Jesus giving the middle finger, along with the inscription “Even Jesus Hates You.”
A while ago I spoke with Kevin Rilott, one of the leaders of the Rockford Pro-Life Initiative, who regularly prays outside NIWC. Almost anticipating what I was thinking, he told me that a lot of people tell him they would never want to pray outside an abortion facility like this, where the evil is so palpable. [Continue reading ...]
Walter Hoye (right) with the League’s Joe and Ann Scheidler at the Hilo, Hawaii Right to Life conference in 2009
Veteran sidewalk counselor Walter Hoye scored a major victory last week when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals — widely regarded as the most liberal appeals court in the nation — sided with him in ruling that the City of Oakland’s “bubble zone” ordinance “unconstitutionally suppresses speech based on the content of its message.”
Pastor Hoye was the first person arrested and later convicted under the ordinance after it was adopted in May 2008, although those convictions were overturned last year.
While the Circuit Court ruled, unfortunately, that the Oakland ordinance was constitutional as it is written (pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hill v. Colorado decision), it also ruled that the ordinance is not valid as the city applies it, because police have only enforced it against Hoye, but not other speakers, including abortion clinic “escorts” who have made a habit of surrounding him, blocking his sign that says, “Jesus loves you and your baby. Let us help,” and otherwise making it impossible for him to communicate with abortion-bound women. [Continue reading ...]
John Thorne at an Aug 16, 2007 protest at Planned Parenthood in Aurora, IL
The pro-life community of northeastern Illinois has just lost one of its most devoted activists. John Thorne passed away quietly in his sleep in his home in Aurora, Illinois, on Wednesday, June 22.
I first met John at a community meeting held in April 2007 to organize in opposition to the rumored reopening of a notorious abortion clinic on the west side of Aurora. John had been one of the most devoted prayer warriors at that clinic, which had closed the previous fall.
John introduced himself after the meeting and showed me his cap, adorned with pro-life buttons, explaining that because he was so short—he styled himself “Little John”—it was easy for people to see the buttons. This was typical of John’s great devotion to the pro-life cause. [Continue reading ...]
May 26, 1984—The League conducts an “abortion clinic blitz,” entering ten Chicago abortuaries in a single morning to pass out pro-life literature in the waiting rooms. These “Truth Teams” are often able to convince women scheduled for abortions, sometimes enlisting the aid of their companions, to leave before undergoing the procedure. Exactly ten years later to the date, President Bill Clinton would sign into law the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) bill, imposing the possibility of draconian fines and prison sentences for engaging in this type of life-saving pro-life activity. The “Truth Teams” would virtually disappear under FACE.
Pro-lifers picket at Planned Parenthood Aurora [Photo by Sam Scheidler]
On Saturday morning, May 21, over 50 pro-lifers came to protest Planned Parenthood’s “Abortion Fortress” in Aurora, Illinois.
A protest against the facility has been held every month since it opened its doors in October of 2007.
Pro-lifers carried picket signs along New York Street outside the facility reading, Planned Parenthood BAD for Aurora, Stop Abortion Now, Planned Parenthood LIES to You and Moms for Life and Dads for Life.
Closer to the clinic itself, a group of local Knights of Columbus prayed a Rosary while others sidewalk counseled and still others supported the counselors in prayer. [Continue reading ...]
The Albany abortion clinic dumpster, where our signs were tossed
Now that the Albany Medical Surgical Center abortion clinic in Chicago has aggressive deathscorts on duty, it is particularly difficult to offer real choice to the women who come there thinking abortion is their best option. Many have no idea that abortion can be dangerous or that help is available just less than a block away.
So to make sure they have an opportunity to choose life, we have printed professional signs with the name and phone number for The Women’s Center, in both English and Spanish.
Clearly the sidewalk counselors and prayer warriors are having an impact on the abortion clinic.
First they installed the deathscorts.
Now they are attacking our signs.
Today, I posted five signs—three in English, two in Spanish. When it was time for me to leave, I gave the signs to the prayer group that was coming on duty next.
Note: This post is Part 1 of 2 in a series
Abortion is supposed to be about “choice,” right?
But without options, “choice” is a meaningless phrase. Yet this is what abortion advocates and so-called “clinic escorts” (deathscorts) seem to want: abortion without any alternatives or information.
One of the links posted to the inaugural “Pro-Life Link Party” was the text of a speech by Abigail Seidman, who had to work as a “clinic escort” because her mother worked for the clinic. I found Abigail’s insight on these volunteers valuable: [Continue reading ...]
Annie Casselman, Marianne Linane, director of respect life ministry for diocese of Little Rock, Joe and Bishop Anthony Taylor [Photo by Ann Scheidler]
Joe and I spent last weekend—Palm Sunday weekend—visiting our daughter Annie and her husband Robert and their three children in Little Rock, Arkansas.
Annie had mentioned to Sharon, the respect life coordinator at her parish, Immaculate Conception in North Little Rock, that her dad was going to be in town. Sharon immediately asked if he would be willing to speak at the closing ceremony for Little Rock’s 40 Days for Life vigil in front of Little Rock Family Planning Services.
Joe, of course, didn’t hesitate a minute. He was pleased to be invited and delighted to have an opportunity to meet the pro-life activists of Little Rock. One of the benefits of involvement in the pro-life movement is meeting the best people in the world everywhere we go. [Continue reading ...]
Four squad cars responded to the call. Two parked on the small side street, one on either side of the road, narrowing the road for other vehicles.
Since the Chicago Bubble Zone was first enacted in 2009, the majority of the trouble has taken place at the Planned Parenthood clinic at Division and LaSalle on the city’s Near North Side. The one exception was the first day the ordinance went into effect, when Ann Scheidler was told she could not stand within 50 feet of the entrance to the clinic.
Well, the situation at PP has cooled down ever since the arrest and subsequent dropping of charges against supposed bubble zone violators there.
Now the tension at Albany has increased. Four officers responded to the calls from the clinic about the pro-lifers this morning. The one in charge–and the least pleasant one–was one Sergeant Kivel.