CHICAGO AREA UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISTS SUPPORT PLANNED PARENTHOOD CLINIC
Although I can’t get a bigger reproduction, I am proud to share the advertisement above. It was placed in the BEACON NEWS, a local paper serving the Aurora, Illinois area by the Chicago Area Unitarian Universalist Council (CAUUC) and local UU ministers.
Aurora became the center of national attention when Planned Parenthood tried to open a clinic in the city. Just as construction on the modern, full service clinic was about to be completed, anti-abortion activists launched a concerted campaign to have the city deny an occupancy permit on flimsy grounds. Planned Parenthood had used a separate corporate identity in applying for zoning and for building permits, although its ownership interest in the company was acknowledged and never denied.
The organization said they had used the corporate identity to protect worker at the site from harassment. Given what subsequently ensued, they were right.
Hearings on the issue brought out hundreds of emotional pro-lifers and picketing of the construction site was intense. Letters flooded local and metropolitan newspapers. National anti-abortion groups like Joseph Scheidler’s Pro-Life Action League, which has a history of clinic sieges, threats, and harassment of clinic employees, volunteers and patients, took the lead in the campaign to keep the clinic from opening.
The clinic got support not only from Planned Parenthood members nation wide, but a network of women’s organizations, health care advocates, and pro-choice clergy. Locally, McHenry County Citizens for Choice (MCCC) organized trips to Aurora, which were supported by this blog. Rev. Dan Larsen of the CONGREGATIONAL UNITARIAN CHURCH, along with many other UU, United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Episcopal, Jewish and other religious leaders, signed a public add “To the Good People of Aurora” sponsored by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.
Eventually the city council decided that “it had no choice” but to issue an occupancy permit and the clinic opened last month. But not without continued protests, heightened perhaps because October was National Right to Life Month (also know as National Respect Life Month) which is officially supported by Catholic dioceses nation-wide. Not only had daily, disruptive picketing, been occurring, but a massive rally was held a couple of weekends ago.
Given the on-going-and it shows no signs of lightening up-I am glad that my faith community is taking a bold-and not risk free-position.