Results tagged “abortion”

Last month, the City Council passed an ordinance that requires anti-abortion activists to stay at least 50 feet from clinics and medical facilities that perform abortions, and 8 feet from anyone entering the clinics. In the 8 foot protective "bubble zone" anyone passing out materials, displaying signs, protesting or attempting to counsel someone without their consent could be fined $500.

Tomorrow, the controversial law that requires physicians to notify the parents or guardians of girls 17 years old or younger who seek abortions will go into effect. Unlike in many other states, however, in Illinois parental consent is not required. There are ways around the notification: in the case of medical emergency or if the girl puts in writing that the pregnancy was a result of sexual assault, she may bypass the notification. A teen can also request a bypass of notification by appearing before a judge who would have 48 hours to rule. The ACLU of Illinois has set up a website designed to help guide girls through the bypass process. The law was actually passed in 1984 and updated in 1995, but that update was placed under a federal injunction which was lifted this summer by the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Yesterday City Council voted 27-11 approving an ordinance requiring anti-abortion activists to keep a distance of 50 ft. away from clinic entrances and medical facilities to create a protective zone for patients and employees. Within the so-called bubble zone, "no one could get closer than 8 feet to pass materials, display signs, protest, educate or counsel another person without their consent" according to the Sun-Times. Activists who violate the ordinance risk a $500 fine.

The Supreme Court of the United States today upheld an appeals court ruling that the state of Illinois was not required to offer motorists the option to buy "Choose Life" license plates offered by the organization Choose Life Illinois, which is pro-adoption and anti-abortion. Choose Illinois - which counts Chicago Bears owner Virginia McCaskey as a board member - had amassed over 25,000 signatures on a petition for the plates but the state turned it down claiming it didn't want to appear to take sides on the issue of abortion.

Days before Notre Dame’s graduation ceremony, the emotional debate over President Obama delivering the famous Catholic University’s commencement address is mounting. “This president stands for many pro-abortion or pro-choice policies that are in direct conflict of my Catholic faith,” Andrew Chronister told the Tribune. Chronister, a theology major, is one of a group of seniors who will attend a prayer service for the unborn instead of attending their own graduation ceremony. There have already been protests on campus since Obama accepted the university’s invitation in March, and a plane with a banner showing the remains of an aborted fetus recently flew over South Bend’s skies.

Tomorrow marks the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, so anti-choice protesters marched downtown yesterday and Trib editorial board members wrote syndicated columns calling abortion "evil".