Planned Parenthood Under Fire for Accusing Pro-Life Advocates of Violence 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
September 11, 2007
Aurora, IL (LifeNews.com) — In the latest saga in the battle over a new abortion business Planned Parenthood hopes to open next week, its local CEO is under fire for accusing a leading pro-life advocate of engaging in violence. Pro-life groups have engaged in massive protests and called on city officials to prevent the abortion center from opening.
Last week, Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area began to fight back against the onslaught of opposition and its president and CEO Steve Trombley engaged in several interviews.
He told one local media outlet that pro-life advocates engage in violence and that was the reason Planned Parenthood kept the new abortion center a secret for so long.
"We certainly kept the building of this facility private in an effort not to alert our opposition, who have a history of criminal behavior," Trombley said.
Trombley also made the violence accusations in a letter to the mayor and members of city council and in an ad in the Aurora Beacon newspaper. He accuses the Pro-Life Action League, Eric Scheidler and the Fox Valley Families Against Planned Parenthood of engaging in violence and inciting others to violence.
In it, he said those "opposing our new facility … have a well-documented history of advocating violence against both persons and property as well as other related criminal activity."
Those comments are coming back to haunt Trombley as the Thomas More Society, a pro-life law firm, has said it will take legal action against him and the pro-abortion group if the comments are not retracted.
That’s according to a letter the group provided to LifeNews.com.
Tom Brejcha, president of the law firm, says the pro-life advocates "demand a prompt and public retraction of false, libelous and malicious statements in your letter … and also in recent newspaper ads."
"Eric Scheidler, who resides with his family in Aurora … has never been arrested let alone convicted of any criminal act in connection with pro-life or anti-abortion activity. He has never advocated violence against either persons or property," Brejcha explained.
"Should you not retract your false and libelous assertions … by follow up letter, or by newspaper advertisement, or by public testimony at Aurora’s next council meeting next Tuesday evening, we shall seek legal redress," Brejcha concludes.
