To: Local Desk
Contact: Joe Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, 773-777-2900, cell 312-965-1030
Chicago, July 11—The first week of the Pro-Life Action League’s two-week Face the Truth Tour was marked by violence at the hands of abortion supporters. The sixth annual Face the Truth Tour began Wednesday, July 6th in downtown Chicago and will run until July 16th in the surrounding area. During the Tour, League members hold huge, graphic photographs of aborted babies along major streets and overpasses.
Incidents of pro-abortion violence include:
- On July 6th, a pedestrian at Daley Plaza spat on five pro-life demonstrators, including a child, as he passed by. He was arrested, handcuffed and taken away in a squad car by Chicago police.
- Also on July 6th, a motorist exited her car, climbed a cement barricade, and tried to seize one of the League’s signs and throw it onto the Kennedy Expressway. The pro-life volunteers prevented her, and filed a police report.
- On July 7th, an enraged pedestrian on Madison Street near Wacker Drive wrenched a sign away from one of the League’s volunteers, injuring her and damaging the sign. Another pedestrian apprehended the attacker until police arrived to arrest him.
- On July 8th, a motorist stopped his pickup truck on the Madison overpass of the Kennedy expressway, kicked a large abortion sign, shouted profanities and threats at the pro-life group, and threatened to destroy the video camera used to capture the whole incident on tape. A police report was filed.
- On July 9th, a motorist in a truck drove by the Tour site at Highways 12 and 22 in Lake Zurich whipping hard, plastic electrical end-caps at the pro-lifers as he passed by the display, hitting several of them in the neck, face and arm. A complaint was filed with Lake Zurich police.
In addition to these violent outbursts, the Truth Tour has met more organized resistance than in years past. At most Tour sites, counter-protestors have held signs and shouted pro-abortion slogans that reflect their anxiety about the Supreme Court vacancy.
“Abortion supporters are in a frenzy,” remarked Joseph M. Scheidler, National Director of the Pro-Life Action League. “They can see the writing on the wall. The days of Roe v. Wade are numbered, and they’re getting desperate.”
Yet, Scheidler notes, the pro-life movement is not waiting for the courts or the legislators to protect life. “We’re taking our message directly to the American public. Our pictures show that abortion kills an unborn child. We won’t be cowed into silence on this injustice by these acts of violence or the shrill rhetoric of radical abortion supporters.”
The Tour’s second week begins Tuesday, July 12th in Rockford, and then moves to the western suburbs, Chicago’s South Side and the near north suburbs. A detailed itinerary can be found here.
