CHICAGO – Thousands of delegates to the recent Democratic Party Convention Chicago walked to the United Centre passing through a wall of abortion signs and hearing the chanting of “Life, yes, Abortion, no, Bill Clinton has to go.”

Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Joseph Scheidler said supporters of the public protest against abortion were earlier marched into a pen at the United Centre, but they marched right out into a walk, to make their signs visible. They carried the full colour picture of a baby, blown up to 5 x 3 ft. and pasted on a foam board. The picture appears on either side of a foam board to make it visible from whatever side one is viewing the baby whose age is given as 21 weeks, second trimester abortion.

True picture

“The president saw it too,” Scheidler told The Interim. “Clinton has seen these signs a lot of times.”

He said that they always “show the graphic pictures, we don’t show cute laughing babies, that’s not what abortion is about.” Pro-Life Action League is an educational organization that works through the media to make people more aware of the importance of life and the horrors of abortion.

“I try to work through the media constantly because even though they are hostile to us, they are the message, you reach thousands of people,” Scheidler said.

Scheidler said that at the convention site, he would should “formation” from time to time and each pro-lifer knew his spot, each comes from the lines and take his position. One person puts his sign on the ground, another person puts his sign on top of that, and other person would hold his sign. They would line up as many signs as they have.

“Now the thing about formation, it builds an abortion wall. You can get them as long as you want. That’s a tremendous visual. When you’re driving along you might miss a sign or two, but you see this block of signs,” he said. The pro-lifers did the formation earier right across from the Chicago Tribune newspaper office. They also carried the signs everywhere in a procession down Michigan Avenue, past the hotels, around City Hall, other places. They started on  Friday night across the street where the Aretha Franklin Concert was held.

“A picture can change your life, one picture, because it stay in you memory. It sticks there. People saw these pictures. They screamed at us,” Scheidler said. Some parents thought the pro-lifers were cruel and they put something on their kid’s heads so they would not see those pictures. Scheidler continued: “If Children accidentally see those pictures we’re sorry about that, but they ought to know about it too. They live in that society. Their little brothers and sisters have been killed in an abortion. The impact is, almost everyone I know active in the movement got active through a picture, not something they read, not something they heard, but a picture. I got into the movement because of this,” he said. He became almost “fixated with the horror and injustice of abortion” when he saw a picture of a black bag full of dead babies at a rally.

Scheidler says the pro-life movement is winning with the help of God and the Blessed Mother. “The strongest point we have is the truth, and so we have to get it out every way we can, on the street, leaflet, whatever. There is the tremendous dedication of the people to this cause, because of their faith. They are tireless. The people are being changed. Even the medical profession is being changed little by little,” he said.

‘Get active’

The Chicago pro-lifer calls on lay people to “get active, come out. You got legs, you can go to the movies whenever you want to. You can go to the clinics. How much more impressive it would be to have 5,000 people instead of 50. You’ll have to answer it someday. You gonna wish you had. Why don’t you do it now?

“There is nothing more complicated and more beautiful than a human being, look at the art, music, love, grandeur and preaching. We were created in the image and likeness of God. And we throw away babies in the trash, like there are of no consequence. I see abortion as an effort to destroy God. It is the closest thing to actual deicide, a destruction of God’s plan for man on earth. To destroy another human being is a slap in God’s face and to let that go on, to sit around and worry about other things, not to fight it, is not to be a soldier of God.”

He added: “I think everyone is called to do something heroic in their lifetime and one of the heroic things is to save life. We still respect a fireman who goes into a burning building; even that gorilla that brought that little boy to the door so that the paramedics could get him. We’re honoring a gorilla that saved a life and yet they put us in jail for saving a life. We are a schizophrenic society. We are all messed up.”

Sued many times and arrested, Schiedler says that pro-life work is rewarding in terms of putting God at the centre of it all, talking women out of abortions, babies born, conversions of former abortion practitioners, closure of abortion clinics.

Scheidler says church leaders in America are doing a significant part in proclaiming the sanctity of life as they have issued statement on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, picketed the White House and issued flyers.

In September 7, Scheidler said on television that Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago should refuse the Presidential Freedom Award to be given by President Clinton. He said Cardinal Bernardin has an opportunity to make a tremendous statement.

“How can we cooperate with a government that murders 5,000 children everyday? I have got to fight everyday for a society that will protect those children so that my little grandson can grow up in a society that does not murder. I cannot compromise.

“What I’m doing now, I do feel it’s a cal. I feel that I’m doing it the best way I can. I want to be out doing these things that are effective.”