RISE UP Pro-lifers protest the opening of Aurora’s new Planned Parenthood in April 2007.

Photo: Sam Scheidler

Pro-Life Action League
(6160 N Cicero Ave, suite 600, 773-777-2900; prolifeaction.org)
Mission End abortion by educating pregnant women about alternatives before they reach a clinic
Victories Claims responsibility for getting American Girl Place to sever ties with Girls Inc., a nonprofit that supports abortion rights. Also claims to have stalled Aurora’s Planned Parenthood from opening for two weeks.
Methods Members stand on the side of the highway with posters of aborted fetuses, which are part of its “Face the Truth” tours

Joe Scheidler founded the Pro-Life Action League in 1980; his wife, Anne, who spoke to us from the group’s Far Northwest Side offices, soon joined as executive director of the 5,000-strong group. Anne says PLAL mainly protests three ways: the Face the Truth outings, picketing clinics and sidewalk counseling, wherein supporters stand outside abortion clinics giving women about to enter pamphlets on abortion alternatives and the dangers of abortion. “We throw baby showers for crisis pregnancy centers, where we collect gifts for the mothers there,” Anne says. “And we hold memorials, symbolic cemeteries for women who have been killed in illegal abortions.”

The PLAL’s fetus-in-your-face methods haven’t always engendered goodwill. It’s been involved in a protracted legal battle with the National Organization for Women (NOW), which sued Joe and a handful of pro-life organizations for racketeering in 1986. The U.S. Supreme Court found for PLAL in 2006, though a final judgment is still pending. Anne says most who get arrested do it to attract publicity, but others end up in the clink against their will. In fact, on the day we spoke with the executive director, a PLAL protester had been arrested for walking on the wrong side of the street outside a Planned Parenthood in Aurora (PP owns the land on one side of the road, and protesters are not allowed on PP property). “It’s unusual for that to happen at Planned Parenthood,” Anne says. “It’s usually pretty quiet. We might have one of the employees come out and tell someone to get a job, but that’s about it.” The PLAL protests every weekend in the city, and once a month in Aurora.

—Jonathan Messinger

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