. . . because action speaks louder than words.
League history, NOW v. Scheidler, Action News, Joe Scheidler, League staff
Q & A on abortion, the unborn child, where we stand on the issues and more
Helping abortion-bound women choose life for their babies
Unmasking the truth about abortion in the public square
Our youth outreach, raising up a new generation of pro-life leaders
Abortion industry converts tell the inside story
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
News and commentary from the Pro-Life Action League
You are currently browsing the archives for the Law and Politics category.
Panelists at the Illinois ACLU’s “War on Contraception” seminar Jan. 30 (from left): Damilla Taylor, Gaylon Alcaraz, Leah Bartelt and Lorie Chaiten [Photo by Paige Scarlett]
Last night I joined a group of pro-life activists to “crash” the Illinois ACLU’s meeting in Chicago Heights, Illinois, touting its sensationalist “War on Contraception” agenda. Pro-lifers made up for at least seven of the 20 people in attendance.
The seminar was the second of three being held in three Chicago suburbs at health clubs, libraries, or other intentionally innocuous locations as part of the ACLU’s “Defending the Targets of Intolerance” series to stand up for supposedly “oppressed” groups including gays, lesbians, and women. [Continue reading ...]
More media coverage today of the oversight of abortion clinics—or lack of it—in Illinois: the Peoria Journal Star reports on the violations found at National Health Care Services.
Before last year’s inspection sweep of Illinois’ nine pregnancy termination special centers (PTSCs), the abortuary hadn’t been inspected in 15 years. State investigators found serious problems there, including shoddy record keeping.
The Journal Star reports that all the violations were corrected by October, at a cost of nearly $10,000.
But what remains to be seen—and is not discussed in today’s story—is whether the state will continue to monitor conditions at the PTSCs, or simply revert to the status quo of decades past when inspections were not done.
A recent Associated Press article by writer Carla Johnson reported that some abortion clinics in Illinois have gone up to 15 years without an inspection, and that several other abortion clinics in the state—including all of those run by Planned Parenthood—aren’t licensed or inspected by the state at all.
In response to inquiries from Johnson, Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler provided numerous documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests regarding abortion clinic inspections. He was also quoted in the article:
Anti-abortion activist Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League, said Illinois is “one of the most pro-abortion states in the nation” and he believes it gave the clinics “a pass.” The state has shown “a systematic unwillingness to step away from the ideology and look at these facilities objectively,” he said, calling for more stringent inspections.
March for Life, Washington DC—Three little words from President Obama’s statement yesterday on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade reveal how radical his support for abortion really is. He says we must strive to “reduce the need for abortion.”
Obama dare not hint—by professing a desire to reduce abortion itself—that there’s anything whatsoever wrong with abortion. What’s bad, what we want to reduce, is “the need for” abortion.
Some will say I’m reading too much into these words, that what Obama means to say—what they may even think he is saying—is that he wants to reduce abortion. But he never does say that. Look at his statements on abortion—always careful to add those three little words.
Obama is happy to mislead people on this score, to appear to share a goal most Americans would embrace: to bring the number of abortions down from the staggering current rate of over 1 million a year.
But hidden in those the little words is a clear message to the abortion industry: “I got your back.” They can rest assured he will fight any effort to actually bring down the number of abortions, keepig the focus on that nebulous “need” for it. And he’s proven that commitment again and again over the past 3 years.
Well, here at the 39th Annual March for Life, we’ve got three little words of our own—three little words that inspire our action today and carry us to victory on November 6: “Stop abortion NOW!”
Today the Illinois Supreme Court handed down a ruling [PDF] in Sandholm v. Kuecker, a libel case involving many of the same issues involved with my own libel suit against Planned Parenthood, Scheidler v. Trombley.
Both cases involve the Citizens Participation Act (CPA), enacted in 2007 to protect citizens from so-called “SLAPP” cases—”strategic lawsuits against political participation.” A SLAPP is a meritless lawsuit filed only to discourage free speech or protest activity. The plaintiff bringing the suit does not intend to win it in court, only to punish or intimidate the defendant by imposing the heavy costs of mounting a defense.
In the Sandholm case, a former high school coach and athletic director, Steve Sandholm, sued a group of parents and a media company for libel and slander for statements they made during an ultimately successful effort to get him fired.
Sandholm’s case was dismissed by the trial court under the CPA, citing an earlier ruling by the judge in my case, Judith Brawka. [Continue reading ...]
Yesterday, Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler, Generations for Life’s John Jansen, myself and 150 other Chicagoans attended a meeting of the Chicago Committee on Special Events to defend free speech and public protest.
With the G8 and Nato summits coming concurrently to Chicago this spring, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel has taken the opportunity to ratchet up the city’s laws governing public protest.
The legislation, which was originally proposed as a temporary measure for the summits but has since become permanent, drastically increased fines and required a permit for any gathering of people in public space. The ordinance defines a “Public Assembly”, which requires a permit, as: [Continue reading ...]
Ann Scheidler talks to reporter Mary Jo Ola after the January 4 hearing [Photo by John Jansen]
Several of us from the Pro-Life Action League attended a public hearing in Chicago this morning regarding the fate of Rockford, Illinois’ notorious Northern Illinois Women’s Center abortion facility, which was ordered closed by the Illinois Department of Public Health on September 29, and has remained closed since.
The hearing was called to order by Administrative Law Judge Cynthia Ramirez, who asked the parties in the case to identify themselves. Harold Hirschman, counsel for NIWC, and Eva Byerly, attorney for the Illinois Department of Public Health and representing the State of Illinois, did so. Judge Ramirez then noted that only the parties in the case were allowed to speak during the hearing.
Byerly told the judge that an agreement had been reached between the State and NIWC yesterday afternoon, and was signed this morning. Hirschman concurred.
Judge Ramirez then said that since an agreement had been reached, the case was dismissed.
The entire hearing lasted no more than two (2) minutes. Judge Ramirez then exited the conference room.
The reporters present were just as mystified as the rest of us, since they seemed to think there would be no story for them to report. They immediately approached Byerly and asked her about the details of the agreement, but she refused to comment, and then exited the conference room. [Continue reading ...]
It’s been said that if someone commits murder, it could very well lead to theft, breaking and entering, cheating at cards, and even fibbing.
So it should come as no surprise when we see stories like this one about Atlanta abortionist Tyrone Malloy:
A metro Atlanta physician and his former office manager have been charged with Medicaid fraud after they billed the government nearly $400,000 for abortion services – which are barred from federal funding – and for ultrasounds not performed, authorities said. …
According to the indictment, between Dec. 9, 2007 and Aug. 9, 2010, the defendants billed the Georgia Medicaid program approximately $131,615 for new patient visits when, in reality, the visits were for elective abortions.
The Georgia Medicaid program is funded jointly by the state and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Under federal law known as the Hyde Amendment, federal funds cannot be used for elective abortion services; nor are abortions covered by Georgia Medicaid, the indictment states.
Malloy and Warner also are charged in the indictment with billing Georgia Medicaid about $255,024 for detailed ultrasounds that actually were never performed during the same period from 2007 through 2010.
When abortion became the law of the land in 1973 with a fiat from the U.S. Supreme Court, the first thing I did was go to the library and look through the Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature.
I checked out most of the magazines and secular journals to find what they had been saying about abortion during the past decade or so, and I found that the stories were almost always slanted toward the legalization of abortion.
Coverage of events such as Sherry Finkbine’s highly publicized abortion in 1962 was mostly pro-abortion. Finkbine, hostess of the then popular Romper Room, had taken thalidomide—which could cause fetal defects—and Finkbine feared that she would have a deformed baby.
When her story went public and she was denied an abortion in Phoenix, she went to Sweden for an abortion. The media took her side, and abortion for fetal defect became “reasonable.”
More stories followed and the secular media had set its course.
We could cite hundreds of such stories, always with a pro-abortion slant or outright support. The secular media cheered Roe v. Wade in 1973 and has never steered away from this course.
There were occasional articles pointing out this bias, even by writers in the secular press, but while they were noted, they were mostly ignored. The abortion bias continues to this day.
A recent example appears in a Newsweek article by Nancy Hass. [Continue reading ...]
The decision earlier this month by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius not to allow girls under 17 to purchase the Plan B contraceptive without a prescription is still a hot topic in the news media.
Today an article appeared in the Los Angeles Times titled “A Look at the Plan B Pill Controversy,” for which the Pro-Life Action League’s Eric Scheidler was interviewed:
“It’s just a matter of common sense,” says Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Chicago-based Pro-Life Action League. “The idea that they could go into a pharmacy and buy these very powerful steroids without talking to [a parent] or a doctor is just completely mad.” Scheidler adds that in cases of minor girls having sex with older men, emergency contraceptives helps the abuser, not the girl.
You can read the article here.