New: City of Aurora and abortion foes compromise on clinic march

CHICAGO (AP) — Aurora officials compromised Friday and allowed an anti-abortion group to stage a sharply scaled back version of a march planned for Saturday to protest against the opening of a Planned Parenthood clinic.

The deal came after U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall refused to intervene in the dispute over the march, which organizers planned to route through a residential neighborhood in the suburb west of Chicago — something that city officials strongly dislike.

Kendall refused a request from city officials for an order that would force a change in the route. She also refused to bar the city from enforcing a law that prohibits picketing in residential areas of Aurora.

“We were disappointed that Judge Kendall denied our temporary restraining order motion,” Aurora corporation counsel Alayne Weingartz told reporters after court. “We obviously respect her decision.”

But she said Aurora officials appreciated Kendall’s decision not to stop the city from enforcing its law on picketing in residential neighborhoods.

Fox Valley Families Against Planned Parenthood had wanted to circle the site of the planned clinic with pickets seven times in what they described as a “Jericho march” followed by a trumpet blast.

The plan was adapted from the sixth chapter of the Book of Joshua in the Old Testament, which describes how marchers circled embattled Jericho seven times, shouting and blowing ram’s horn trumpets and bringing the walls down.

Under the compromise, the marchers will be allowed to pass through a residential neighborhood adjacent to the clinic site one time. But after that the gathering will be restricted to commercial areas of Aurora.

Eric Scheidler, a spokesman for Fox Valley Families Against Planned Parenthood, said he was glad the group got a portion of what it wanted.

“We’re very pleased that we are going to be able to exercise our First Amendment rights peaceably and to pray together that Planned Parenthood won’t open up in our town,” said Scheidler, whose father is Joseph Scheidler, a longtime national leader in the anti-abortion movement.

The $7.5 million, 22,000-square foot facility was scheduled to open Sept. 18, but Aurora this week refused to issue a necessary occupancy permit. Planned Parenthood has filed a separate lawsuit, seeking an emergency injunction that would allow them to open the reproductive and sexual health clinic after their temporary occupancy permit expires Monday.