Anne-Marie Cronin, executive director of Waterleaf Women’s Center in Aurora offers remarks Saturday outside the Planned Parenthood in Aurora during a rally. Waterleaf Women’s Center is a new pregnancy center being constructing next to Planned Parenthood. The vigil was one of 166 organized at Planned Parenthood facilities in 40 states.
Hundreds of individuals participated in the Aurora vigil. Turnout nationwide is estimated to have topped 10,000. Many individuals in the Aurora crowd said that they were motivated to attend their first pro-life event after seeing the movie Unplanned, which tells the story of Abby Johnson, a Planned Parenthood manager turned pro-life activist.
Chicago area vigils were also held at the Planned Parenthood center in Flossmoor and Illinois’ newest abortion facility, the Carafem location in Skokie (not affiliated with Planned Parenthood).
Pro-Life Action League executive director Eric Scheidler was emcee for the Aurora vigil. Other speakers included Pastor Jeff Moore of the First Presbyterian Church of Aurora; Deacon Joe Verdico of St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Naperville; and Nancy Kreuzer of Silent No More, who shared her heartbreaking story of aborting an unborn child diagnosed with Down Syndrome.
— Pro-Life Action League
Pro-Life Action League photos
Joliet Bishop Daniel Conlon to lead a “Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion” at Planned Parenthood in Aurora on Good Friday
On the heels of this past weekend’s hugely successful Nationwide Pro-Life Candlelight Vigil, attended by over 10,000 people at Planned Parenthood facilities across the country, the Pro-Life Action League is organizing another nationwide pro-life event on Good Friday, April 19. The “Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion” will be held at nearly 100 abortion facilities throughout the United States, including Planned Parenthood in Aurora.
The service in Aurora will begin at 10:00 a.m. and will be led by the Most Reverend R. Daniel Conlon, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Joliet. This solemn prayer service has been held outside the Aurora Planned Parenthood facility since 2008, and nationwide since 2014. Hundreds of area Christians, both Catholic and Protestant, are expected to turn out for the Aurora vigil. More than 300 visited the site for the candlelight vigil this past Saturday.
“As a society, we’ve become increasingly sensitive to the victims of injustice, and that’s to our credit,” said Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League. “But we forget about the victims of abortion, starting with the more than 60 million unborn children who have lost their lives to legal abortion in the United States since 1973.”
Scheidler notes that abortion’s victims also include millions of women who have come to regret their abortions, as well as former abortion clinic staff like Abby Johnson, whose sincere desire to help women with untimely pregnancies was exploited by Planned Parenthood, as depicted in the movie Unplanned.
Scheidler continued, “There’s no better day to remember the victims of abortion than Good Friday, when we remember the suffering and execution of Jesus Christ, an innocent man who preached the value of every single human life.”
Thousands of pro-life Christians are expected to attend Way of the Cross services outside abortion facilities in more than 30 states. For many, this solemn prayer vigils has become a central part of their annual Holy Week religious observance.
For more information please contact: Eric Scheidler, 773-251-8792, ejs@prolifeaction.org.
About the Pro-Life Action League
The Pro-Life Action League was founded by Joe Scheidler in 1980 with the aim of saving babies from abortion through direct action, and is now headed by Joe’s son, Eric. Not content to await a political or judicial solution to abortion, the League seeks to stop the killing of unborn children right now through all available peaceful means, including public protest, sidewalk counseling, education, youth outreach, and national leadership. Visit prolifeaction.org to learn more.