Wednesday I reported on Planned Parenthood’s local and nationwide schemes to fight back against our popular, grassroots campaign to protect our families from their massive new “Abortion Fortress,” slated to open September 18.
That was before I read the letter [PDF] that PP/Chicago Area CEO Steve Trombley sent to the Mayor and Aldermen—three pages almost entirely given over to attacking us pro-lifers, especially my father, Joe Scheidler, including this passage:
After a six-week trial in 1998, a jury in Chicago unanimously found that the Pro-Life Action League Network orchestrated 121 crimes involving acts of threats of force or violence against women’s health facilities that offered abortion. These crimes proven at trial included . . .
Trombley goes on to list some of the outrageous accusations—testimony now known to be perjured—hurled at my father in the 1998 NOW v. Scheidler trial (not, as Trombley claims “proven at trial”). But most significantly, he fails to mention that the jury decision against my father was ultimately overturned not once but twice by the U.S. Supreme Court (2003 and 2006).
As I noted in my rebuttal [PDF] to the Mayor and City Council, once again Steve Trombley and Planned Parenthood fail to disclose all the relevant facts of the case.
In his letter, Trombley tries to pretend that a public hearing notice published in Chicago about an appearance before the board of the Illinois Finance Authority on May 8, 2007 somehow constitutes public disclosure of the Gemini/Planned Parenthood link—which of course was kept secret during the late 2006 and early 2007 permit process here in Aurora.
This is an interesting development. Trombley makes so much of that tiny public notice (published in the Sun-Times), that one can only conclude he recognizes that Planned Parenthood did have an obligation to disclose that they and Gemini are one and the same.
But is he really trying to tell us that the city planners of Aurora need to comb the public hearing notices of the Chicago papers daily for information on companies building in Aurora? That it’s okay to hide the facts from the City of Aurora as long as you publish a little notice—six months after the process has begun—in a paper 50 miles away?
Trombley tries to foist this one on the people of Aurora too, in an open letter [PDF] published yesterday in the Beacon. In that letter he also tries to throw attention off Planned Parenthood’s deception by attacking the good people of Aurora who have been opposing him,calling us “anti-abortion activists with a history of advocating illegal and sometimes violent behavior.”
Well, we’re having none of that. Today we demanded [PDF] that Steve Trombley retract these false and slanderous statements about us, or face the consequences in court.
This pro-life campaign has been completely peaceful—as the Aurora Police Department can testify. But the fact that Steve Trombley feels he has no recourse but to smear us—and before our own elected officials, for shame—shows how desperate Planned Parenthood has become.
As well they should be. Today’s Aurora Beacon and Chicago Tribune report that Mayor Weisner is doubtful Planned Parenthood will be able to open September 18 as they intended, since the investigation into their dealings with the City will not likely be concluded in time.
Amen to that.
