[NYTr] Battle over abortion rights moves to Illinois

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Workers World - Oct 4, 2007 issue
http://www.workers.org/2007/us/illinois-1004/

Battle over abortion rights moves to Illinois

By Kris Hamel

Aurora, Ill., has become the latest battleground in the struggle for
abortion rights. Located 42 miles southwest of Chicago, the city has
been besieged by anti-choice protesters since it became known that
Planned Parenthood was building a new, state-of-the-art clinic there
for women’s health care. The 22,000-square-foot clinic will provide a
full range of women’s medical services, including cancer screening,
contraception and abortion.

In July, anti-choice zealots found out that the clinic was under
construction and set to open in September. They immediately began
holding mass protests and “pray-ins” at the construction site.

In a shameful act of deference to anti-choice protesters, city
officials have asked the county prosecutor to review the clinic’s
permits for fraud and other criminal violations. In August, the
anti-woman forces had jammed a City Council meeting at which Aurora
officials conceded and ordered an investigation of the permit process
for the new facility.

Planned Parenthood applied for and was granted construction and other
required permits under the subsidiary name of Gemini Office
Development, a completely legal business maneuver. Aurora city leaders
have knuckled under to the right wing, which has stated that Planned
Parenthood was deceitful and misleading about the nature of the
facility under construction.

Apparently, women’s right to access a full range of health-care
services is not a concern of city officials.

On Sept. 20, Federal Judge Charles Norgle denied a motion by Planned
Parenthood to lift an injunction preventing the new clinic from opening
to the public. Aurora officials had granted a temporary occupancy
permit in August.

Planned Parenthood attorney Christopher Wilson told Norgle that if the
new facility had housed a foot clinic, Aurora officials would not be
doing an in-depth review. In court, Wilson charged that city officials
are expressing concern about how the medical clinic was approved only
because of pressure from anti-choice groups.

“We are here because we are being denied equal protection under the
law,” Wilson said.

Cecile Richards, national president of Planned Parenthood, has called
Aurora the new “ground zero” in the struggle for reproductive rights.

“We are facing no less than the most emboldened protest by the most
radical anti-choice people I’ve ever encountered,” Richards wrote in a
recent mass e-mail asking for support for the group’s Chicago
affiliate, which oversees the Aurora clinic.

Debbie Johnson, a leader of the Detroit Action Network For Reproductive
Rights, told Workers World: “What is really needed in this situation is
a mass outpouring of pro-choice, pro-women’s rights activists.
Anti-choicers are a clear minority, as every poll has shown that a
majority of people in the United States supports women’s right to
choose. A mass demonstration by pro-choice advocates would show the
city of Aurora that their tactics to intimidate Planned Parenthood will
be resisted. Every woman in that area of Illinois should have the right
to access the many services the new clinic will provide.”

Articles copyright 1995-2007 Workers World. Verbatim copying and
distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without
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