. . . because action speaks louder than words.
League history, NOW v. Scheidler, Action News, Joe Scheidler, League staff
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
NOTE: Due to its length and number of pictures, this article is split into three parts.
Scenes from the 2003 Face the Truth tour [Photo by EJS]
Hundreds-of-thousands of Chicago area residents faced the truth about abortion during the Pro-Life Action League's fourth annual Face the Truth tour, July 9-19. Tour veterans called it our best tour yet, with 40-100 volunteers at each site. As many as twenty babies were saved during our nine-day public witness of the horror of abortion.
Unlike last year's tour that had many sites in outlying areas, this year we stayed closer to home, with over half the sites in the City of Chicago itself. We began with a three-day downtown blitz. Each morning we met at the Madison Street bridge over the Kennedy Expressway and dispersed to eight different expressway overpasses to display giant eight-foot tall abortion signs to the heavy traffic below.
Marie Smith and Ann Scheidler on Madison Bridge [Photo by Danita Covington]
This was a new strategy for Face the Truth. It took two people to hold each of the giant signs constructed especially for this phase of the tour, depicting the gruesome severed head of a baby killed by a third trimester abortion. With at least two signs on each bridge, one facing northbound traffic and the other southbound, and a hundred cars moving in each direction every minute, at least 100,000 drivers were reached. Positive reactions from drivers outnumbered negative two-to-one, especially among truck drivers. The large signs were so impressive that we continued to use them for the rest of the tour.
During the July 11 stop at the Kennedy overpasses, a cab driver drove up to a tour volunteer, holding a sign on the Monroe Street bridge. He got out of his cab and asked for some literature. He said he supported what we were doing. The cab driver said, "Every day I drive at least one woman over to the clinic. She's going for an abortion, and I want to be able to give her some literature." He was referring to the Family Planning Associates, an abortion mill just off the Kennedy.
Tour staff gave him all the fetal development flyers he had and gave him our phone number so he could call for more. Thanks to our presence on the overpasses that day, this pro-life cabdriver may offer hundreds of women the chance to reconsider abortion.[Back to Top]
Bill McIlvaine at Daley Plaza Site [Photo by EJS]
After the overpasses, we visited downtown sites for our midday and afternoon stops that afforded contact with pedestrians. It gave us the opportunity to display our Face the Truth 2003 T-shirts, featuring the Uncle Sam logo from our Bring America Back to Life celebration, with "Abortion Stops a Baby's Heart" on the back.
On July 9 we encircled the Daley Plaza with signs and distributed literature to a receptive lunchtime crowd. A small group of pro-abortion counter-protestors met us there with nearly illegible signs painted on bed sheets. We welcomed their presence. Bearing such slogans as "Abortion on demand and without apology" and surrounded by horrible abortion pictures, their signs unwittingly testified to the moral poverty of the pro-abortion position. As one Chicago police officer commented to us: "You have the pictures."
We ended our first day near the Lyric Opera on Wacker Drive. We lined both sides of Madison Street and faced the throngs of commuters walking to Union Station and Ogilvie Transportation Center. People were less receptive than at Daley Plaza. An icy indifference was the most common reaction. One man kicked Joe Scheidler's sign, shouting and cursing.
Pro-Abort counter-protesters at Daley Plaza [Photo by EJS]
Though only a small percentage of passers-by would accept literature, there were so many that halfway through the site we ran out. Without any more flyers to hand out, Annie Scheidler began to move through the crowd, posing as a regular pedestrian and striking up conversations about the graphic pictures at each corner. Her impression was that many households throughout Chicagoland would hold long-overdue conversations about abortion that evening. Despite resistance at this site, we stayed an extra half hour to reach as many people as possible.
The next day a man approached our volunteer Cathy Mieding at St. Peter's Church in the Loop when she stopped to say a prayer. Recognizing her T-shirt from the Madison and Wacker site, he thanked her for being out there and commented on the effect our presence had: "There was an eerie silence that I have never, ever experienced before, and I'm there every day."
[Back to Top]Our stop on Day Two at the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue was bustling with tourists, students and workers on their lunch break. Our line of signs flanking the landmark lion statues elicited interesting responses. An Art Institute employee complained to Ann Scheidler that we were ruining the peaceful escape museum visitors are seeking. Ann pointed out that the Art Institute is filled with disturbing paintings and sculptures, including the crucifixion.
"Pro-Choice Because Kids Have No Future"
-- Pro-abort sign at Art Institute
Most tour participants engaged in lively conversation with passers-by at this site. Annie Scheidler talked to a young couple who used every pro-abortion argument in the book, but finally admitted they only want abortion so they can continue to live in sin. At the end of the stop, some students appeared with a handmade sign reading "Pro-choice because kids have no future." They were unable to explain what they meant.
We ended the day at Adams and Wacker Drive, reaching evening commuters at that intersection. The crowds at this corner were more indifferent or hostile than at Madison. However, the site was not without its bright spots. One woman called a friend on her cell phone to describe what she was seeing, then stopped to talk to Corrina Gura about fetal development. She had believed the lie that an unborn baby is "just a blob of tissue" and was amazed to learn that a baby's heart beats as early as 21 days after conception.
[Go to Part 2] [Back to Top]