About 400 pro-life advocates protested peacefully for the lives of unborn babies Friday outside a huge new Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Waukegan, Illinois.
The abortion facility opened earlier this month after Planned Parenthood built it quietly under a shell name. Leaders of the abortion chain said they chose the location to attract women from more conservative neighboring states where abortions are more restricted.
When news of the Planned Parenthood spread, pro-life advocates were outraged and immediately took action. Live Action News reports the Pro-Life Action League, Illinois Right to Life, Lake County Right to Life, Students for Life of America and other pro-life groups organized the peaceful protest Friday to pray and offer support to mothers and unborn babies.
Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League said they expected about 200 people, but about 400 pro-life advocates showed up in response to the new life-destroying business.
“When an infant infected with the coronavirus died, the governor talked about how sad it was that years were stolen from the child. Come on, Governor, what about the years stolen from a child aborted at an age just a few months younger than the child with the virus who died?” Scheidler told the Lake County Gazette.
Scheidler said they asked pro-lifers to wear masks and stay a safe distance apart. He told World Magazine that the “response from passersby was overwhelmingly positive, with countless thumbs up.”
Sarah Minnich, a regional coordinator with Students for Life, said pro-life students traveled from Chicagoland, Northern Illinois and Joliet to participate.
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“… Planned Parenthood, at the very core of its organization, is darkness,” Minnich said. “It thrives in darkness, it feeds on darkness. It feeds on fears of those women walking in, the fears of families who don’t know what else to do, and they feed on the fears of the pandemic, by using the legal system so that they can open while Americans are trying to save vulnerable lives.”
The huge new facility aborts unborn babies for any reason up to 20 weeks – many likely at taxpayers’ expense.
Though the pro-life advocates were peaceful, abortion activists were not. Students for Life and Young Americans for Freedom both reported assaults on their students.
“While peacefully protesting, two groups of pro-choice attackers egged pro-lifers, including members of Crusaders for Life …” according to Students for Life. “The students, many of whom are young, were hit while kneeling in peaceful prayer.”
Shawna Weber, the vice chair of the College of Lake County Young Americans for Freedom, said eggs also hit her at least twice while she was advocating for the unborn with students from her chapter, according to the conservative organization’s website. Weber said one attacker yelled “Pro-choice!” as they threw the eggs.
A priest also was hit by an egg, according to Young Americans for Freedom. Police were contacted about the assaults.
In the midst of the coronavirus shutdowns, churches and businesses across Illinois are closed, and people are being forced to postpone important medical care. Meanwhile, abortion facilities continue to abort unborn babies in elective abortions – and expand their life-destroying practices.
The new Waukegan facility boasts of 100 parking spaces, five exam rooms and two procedure rooms. The abortion chain said it chose the location because Lake County is the third most populated county in the state and STD rates are growing. It also hopes to draw women from Wisconsin, which has pro-life laws that protect unborn babies and mothers in at least some circumstances.
“The proximity to Wisconsin — a state that poses stringent legal barriers to abortion — was a critical factor in choosing the location,” Jennifer Welch, Planned Parenthood of Illinois CEO, said in a statement.
Right now, because of the coronavirus restrictions, the new facility is limiting its services to elective abortions and a few other actual medical services, the Daily Herald reports.
Earlier this month, Mary Kate Knorr, executive director of Illinois Right to Life, expressed outrage at the “remarkable and disgusting irony” of opening a life-destroying business in the midst of a health crisis.
“As was the case in Fairview Heights, Planned Parenthood went unnoticed by applying for permits and licenses under the name of a shell company. They opened their doors on Tuesday, May 12 – in the midst of Governor Pritzker’s stay-at-home order,” Knorr said in an email to supporters.
Just a few months ago, Planned Parenthood pulled a similar stunt when it opened another huge abortion facility in Fairview Heights, Illinois, on the border with Missouri. The abortion chain secretly constructed the abortion facility under a fake name before opening in October.
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion chain in the U.S. According to its annual report, it aborted nearly 346,000 babies last year while reaping in $1.6 billion in revenue.
It likely is expanding in Illinois because the state recently passed several pro-abortion laws, including a 2019 measure forcing taxpayers to fund elective abortions.
ACTION ALERT: Contact city officials in Waukegan, county officials in Lake County, and Gov. Jay Pritzker’s office.
