Look quick. The Aurora Planned Parenthood saga is the lead story on the Fox News Chicago site right now. Eric Scheidler has something important to say. Go watch the news clip.

You'll see in that clip PP CEO Steve Trombley has found another straw to grasp. Even though Gemini and PP deceived the City of Aurora about the intended occupant of its building, Steve says the City should have known by the looks of the plans.

FNC is also asking this poll question: "Would you want a Planned Parenthood clinic in your neighborhood?" Go vote. On right side of home page.

UPDATE, 9/18, 7:23a: Well, I told you to look quick. The Aurora PP saga is now rotating as top story (which is still good). It can be viewed here, where you can also still vote on the poll, which has been running 70-75% against PP. The story is actually very fair. I even think Trombley weakened PP's credibility even further via this story.

This one is easy but critical.

From the Aurora Beacon, July 29:

Trombley said those threats [of protests] won't affect progress on the $7.5 million project.... He said $5 million already has been raised for the project, with the remainder coming from donations as well.

"The more protesters out in front, the faster we'll probably raise it," he said.

Speaking was Steve Trombley, Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area's CEO.

There's also this in the Chicago Tribune, July 27....

"Frankly, I'm surprised we were able to keep it a secret for so long," said Steve Trombley, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area.... "We didn't want anything to interfere with the opening... and, at this point, I don't anticipate anything will stop that from happening."

The $7.5 million facility at 240 N. Oakhurst Drive... is scheduled to open Sept. 18.... Private donors contributed $5 million toward its construction.

But on May 8, 2007, PP's Teri Huyck, Chief Operating Officer, and Cheryl Harris, Chief Financial Officer, attended an Illinois Finance Authority meeting requesting that it affirm PP as nonprofit so PP could secure a $10 million loan at a 1% reduction to finance the Aurora project, refinance loans on two Chicago PP facilities, and renovate several others.

I have cut and pasted the portion relevant to this discussion below. You can view the entire document here. Click to enlarge:

This document shows Steve Trombley lied when he told both the Beacon and Trib that $5 million had been raised through private donations for the Aurora project. Actually, only $1,550,000 was raised from only two sources.

But that's really a minor point, merely demonstrating Trombley's propensity to lie.

The more critical point is this: Eight weeks ago, Trombley was pretending to the world that 2/3 of the money needed for the Aurora project was in-pocket, "with the remainder coming from donations," according to the Aurora Beacon.

Trombley's story has signficantly changed in the last two weeks. Now he is touting that IFA meeting and a public notice PP/Gemini apparently placed in the Chicago Sun-Times (in a city 40 miles from Aurora - why not the Auroa Beacon or Daily Herald?) as a demonstration PP/Gemini were forthcoming about their relationship. He has stated this numerous times in the press, and from his September 4 letter to Aurora aldermen:

I want to assure you that Planned Parenthood was open and truthful throughout the extensive permitting process and continues to welcome the cooperation of the City of Aurora.

Our corporate and financial documents were explicit about the involvement of Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area....

The tax-exempt bond financing for the project through the Illinois Development Finance Authority required a public hearing and further public disclosures of Planned Parenthood's involvement in this project. Planned Parenthood obtained tax-exempt financing, and complied with the additional public disclosures this process required, even though it could have easily financed the project privately with little or no public disclosures.

But it is clear Trombley tried to publicly hide the fact PP financed the Aurora project until very recently.

The financial trail linking Gemini to Planned Parenthood was scant to start, but even so, Trombley tried to throw everyone off that trail, whether intentionally or simply because he's a gas bag. Whatever, that's what he acccomplished.

[HT for IFA document: John Jansen of PLAL]

A full page ad featuring 21 "religious leaders" called for a "Day of Prayer" yesterday in the Aurora Beacon, Chicago Tribune, and Daily Herald. The ad stated it was "Paid for by Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area."

So we had dueling clergy in the newspaper yesterday, because 121 pro-life clergy from churches in the Aurora Planned Parenthood area also took out a full page ad in the Aurora Beacon and Naperville Sun.

I scanned the entire ad in sections and pieced it together, but it's not clear. (Click to enlarge.)

So following is the enlarged message and enlarged list of signers. (Click both to enlarge.)....

We already know Randall Doubet-King is a PP board member.

I found Rev. Larry Greenfield is a PP "consultant."

A person of interest to my Catholic friends would be Donna Quinn, a feminist Dominican nun, who achieved infamy in Chicago Catholic circles in 2005 for breaking a communion wafer just handed her by a priest at Holy Name Cathedral and handing half to a Rainbow Sash homosexual protester.

Poking around a little, I found most members of this group are long-standing allies of PP and its agenda, such as promoting comprehensive sex ed, fighting religious hospitals that do not want to distribute the morning-after pill, etc. This is apparently the usual list of suspects PP calls on when it wants to put a collar around abortion.

[HT: Dan Gura]

This was just published by Time Magazine an hour ago:

In Illinois today, a federal judge is expected to hear an intriguing argument in the abortion debate. At issue: Is Aurora, Ill., a city of nearly 175,000 about an hour's drive west of Chicago, trying to stop Tuesday's scheduled opening of the nation's largest Planned Parenthood clinic because of political pressure from anti-abortion activists? Or was the clinic's true nature - that is, its Planned Parenthood genesis - not readily apparent to city officials when they originally approved permits for the building? Or is it a bit of both? The case is already one of the most heated in the nation's grassroots abortion wars, and protests in Aurora this past weekend drew hundreds of anti-abortion demonstrators....

(Continue reading story on page 2.)

UPDATE, 4p: On this point in the Time article, "The group [PP] says abortions accounted for 3% of its services nationally last year," here is this direct quote from PP Chicago CEO Steve Trombley, from the Aurora Beacon, July 29:

"There's a need for this service," Trombley said, citing Aurora's population boom and burgeoning populations in Kane and surrounding counties. "Ninety percent of medical services are for preventative gynecological services. Only 10 percent of what we do relates to abortion services."

The story began last winter, when Gemini Office Development LLC applied to build a 22,000-square-foot clinic on land zoned for medical use. The design's details included surgical rooms and various security features, such as bullet-proof glass. Construction proceeded. In July, however, local newspapers reported that Gemini is, in fact, a subsidiary of Planned Parenthood's local branch. Still, in August, the city routinely issued a temporary permit allowing the $7.5 million clinic to open on Sept. 18 with just two relatively minor provisions: install more exit signs, as well as glass at service counters. There seemed to be little legal questions about it at the time: it is normal for commercial concerns to use subsidiaries to conduct business and set up offices.

Of course, Planned Parenthood is not just a company. And abortion opponents in this historically conservative suburb abutting cornfields were outraged. An assortment of groups, including churches, organized around-the-clock protests outside the clinic, which is tucked between a supermarket, a Blockbuster Video, and a cluster of upscale homes. The debate embroiled this city as has few other issues: City council meetings began drawing hundreds of abortion opponents.

And so, amid the outcry over alleged inconsistencies in the application and testimony of Planned Parenthood's executives, Aurora city officials announced on Aug. 30 that the clinic's opening would depend on a fresh review of its building permit. "These concerns were raised once this became high-profile, and people began looking back at the process," says Carie Anne Ergo, the city's spokeswoman. Last Wednesday, the city told Planned Parenthood it "had no intention of allowing you to open for business," according to court documents. On Thursday Sept 13, Planned Parenthood responded with a lawsuit in U.S. District Court attempting to block the city's efforts to stop the clinic's opening, saying it was rooted in discrimination because the clinic would perform abortions.

Shortly after dawn on Saturday, hundreds of abortion opponents arrived at the clinic, which many people on all sides of the debate have started calling "Ground Zero." Some simply prayed on the sidewalk behind the clinic. Many carried signs reading, KEEP ABORTIONS OUT OF AURORA. Cheryl Hartnett, a 52-year-old Aurora retiree, said her "heart broke" when she learned the clinic is owned by Planned Parenthood. "There will be political consequences" for city officials, she warned Saturday, surrounded by a clutch of protesters. Meanwhile, people who live in the homes near the clinic are fearful of potential violence. For much of the weekend, police officers stood guard in front of the entrance to a subdivision behind the clinic.

In an interview, Steve Trombley, CEO of Planned Parenthood's Chicago branch, said his group initially used Gemini to shield the building's contractors and employees from harassment. "I was surprised our opponents didn't figure us out sooner - they monitor our every move," he said Saturday, standing in the clinic's spare, manila-colored lobby. "We answered every question the city asked. This is about political pressure form anti-abortion group," he said of efforts to block the clinic's opening. Abortion opponents say they could recall few cases in which Planned Parenthood used subsidiaries to open clinics. A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman said the use of subsidiaries to open clinics isn't part of a new national strategy, and that "affiliates use different approaches to meet the health care needs of communities."

Last year, Planned Parenthood provided birth control to about 2.5 million patients nationwide. The group says abortions accounted for 3% of its services nationally last year. Elsewhere in the country, abortion opponents have opened so-called crisis pregnancy centers, often next to Planned Parenthood clinics, to persuade women headed for abortions to reconsider the procedure.

In Aurora, abortion opponents promise their protests will continue even as Planned Parenthood says at least a dozen patients have made appointments for Tuesday. Across the city, meanwhile, the clinic seems to dominate conversation. "I'm shocked we're involved in the middle of this," Rick Lawrence, a city alderman, says.

[Photo courtesy of Time]

1. Tiller faces criminal misdemeanor charges on 19 illegal late-term abortions committed in 2003 not signed off by an unaffiliated physician. For this Tiller could lose his license and spend a year in jail for each convicted count.

2. Tiller just lost his battle to block a grand jury from being convened to investigate illegal late-term abortions Tiller may have committed since 2003, with a petitioner request that Sedgwick County DA Nola Foulston and AG Paul Morrison, both with ties to Tiller, not be involved in this investigation.

3. KS legislators conducted a 2-day hearing earlier this month investigating Tiller's late-term abortion practices to consider finding and strengthening loopholes in current late-term abortion laws. As part of this, one of Tiller's patients, Michelle Arnesto-Berg, testifed that when he aborted her in May 2003 she signed no consent form, was asked for no medical information, and was never diagnosed with any condition that met the legal requirement of "substantial and irreversible impairment" for abortions after 22 weeks. Only recently Michelle learned Tiller charted her baby as nonviable, which was news to her. Hear Michelle's testimony here.

Here is the Los Angeles Times front page story, today. Tiller's quote at the very end of the story is most interesting....

[HT: Operation Rescue; photo courtesy of LAT]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-tiller17sep17,1,4721245.story?ctrack=4&cset=true

Los Angeles Times
For Kansas abortion doctor, pressure mounts
George Tiller is to be tried on 19 counts of failing to get an independent second opinion in late-term procedures. And activists aim to force an inquiry by a grand jury.
By Stephanie Simon
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 17, 2007

Antiabortion activists in Kansas are stepping up a campaign to drive one of the nation's last late-term abortion providers out of business.

Dr. George Tiller, who draws patients from across the country to his Wichita clinic, faces trial next month on 19 misdemeanor counts. The charges -- which he vigorously disputes -- accuse him of aborting viable fetuses without first consulting an independent physician as required by state law.

Each count carries a penalty of up to a year in jail. If convicted, Tiller could also lose his medical license.

His opponents aren't waiting for the outcome of the trial.

This month, the antiabortion group Kansans for Life submitted nearly 8,000 signatures to Sedgwick County District Court in Wichita, calling for a grand jury to review Tiller's handling of late-second- and third-trimester abortions. Tiller's lawyers appealed to federal court to block the grand jury, calling it a "vigilante effort," but were rebuffed last week. State law allows citizens to force the seating of a grand jury.

At the Capitol, meanwhile, a committee controlled by antiabortion lawmakers held a two-day hearing this month to lay the groundwork for tougher restrictions on abortion. Among the witnesses: a woman who said Tiller rushed her into an abortion at the end of her second trimester without counseling, informed consent or a second opinion because she had arrived late for her appointment at the clinic. State officials said they might investigate those claims.

"This is the beginning of the end for Tiller," said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, a Wichita-based antiabortion group.

Kansas law requires any physician who performs an abortion at or after 22 weeks' gestation to first determine whether the fetus is viable, meaning it could survive outside the womb. Aborting a viable fetus is permitted only if two doctors certify that continuing the pregnancy could kill the woman or cause her "substantial and irreversible" harm to "a major bodily function." Tiller has reported aborting more than 2,600 viable fetuses since the law took effect in 1998.

His attorneys and supporters say Tiller has done nothing wrong. And some of his patients, expressing deep gratitude for his work, have shared their stories.

At AHeartbreakingChoice .com, several women explain why they traveled to Wichita to abort much-wanted pregnancies, long after they had decorated nurseries and chosen baby names.

"The scan showed that her little brain was severely calcified," one wrote.

"She would have required a minimum of three surgeries to even enable her to take her first breath," another said.

The women write that they were well into the second half of their pregnancies, some into the third trimester, before the fetal defects were diagnosed. "I loved and wanted my baby very much," one wrote. "I loved her so much that I would rather her go back to God than suffer for even one day."

Tiller also accepts some late-term patients with healthy fetuses. Among them, he has said, have been girls as young as 10, rape victims, alcoholics, drug addicts, and women who were suicidal or depressed or who feared their relatives would harm them if they continued the pregnancy. Tiller has said a few of his patients were just a week or two from their due dates.

In December, the state's attorney general at the time, Phill Kline, charged Tiller with aborting viable fetuses even when the pregnant women did not face grave and lasting heath threats.

Kline subpoenaed patient records; he said they showed that Tiller had justified the abortions by diagnosing women with anxiety or a single episode of depression.Because of a jurisdictional dispute, the charges were dropped just days before Kline left office. He had lost his bid for reelection in large part because his opponent, Paul Morrison, painted him as an antiabortion extremist.

When Morrison took office, he declined to refile the charges against Tiller.

But Morrison did launch his own investigation using the limited number of patient medical files available to him. That resulted in the 19 misdemeanor counts pending in District Court. The charges allege that Tiller did not get the required second opinion from an independent doctor on some late-term cases, but rather relied on a physician with financial ties to his practice.

Tiller attorney Dan Monnat said "there was nothing illegal in the relationship" between the two physicians.

Monnat has filed a brief contesting the requirement for a second opinion. The U.S. Supreme Court and federal appeals courts have repeatedly struck down such requirements as infringing on a physician's right to practice medicine.

The courts have also held that laws banning abortion must make exceptions to protect the woman's health, including her mental health.

Determined to keep the pressure on Tiller, antiabortion activists have spent the last year staging prayer vigils and protest rallies -- at least one of them promoted nationally by Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly, who has referred to the doctor on air as "Tiller the baby killer."

About 10 days before one of the bigger rallies, in July, unknown vandals drilled holes through the roof of Tiller's one-story clinic and threaded a hose into the building, apparently trying to flood it. The resulting damage -- and lingering mold -- forced Tiller to close his practice for more than a month.

But now he is seeing patients again, and his allies are betting that he'll weather the storm, just as he has in the past.

His clinic was bombed in 1986 and blockaded for six weeks in 1991. In 1993, an antiabortion activist shot Tiller through both arms; he was back at work the next day.

In 2005, antiabortion activists circulated petitions to force a grand jury investigation into the treatment of a 19-year-old mentally disabled patient who died of complications from an early-third-trimester abortion at Tiller's clinic. The grand jury found no grounds for criminal indictment.

In a rare interview two years ago, Tiller said he tried to block out the protests and the politics so he could focus on his patients.

"If I engage, then I wear out, and I have less . . . stamina for what goes on inside the clinic," he said. "If I give away my emotional serenity, they win."

This information comes from pro-life attorney Tom Brejcha, who just left the hearing:

U.S. District Judge Charles Norgle has denied Planned Parenthood's request for an order that Aurora allow it to open tomorrow.

There is a very short schedule for the next hearing. Each side has 24 hours to file papers to respond. They will be back in court Thursday morning. This hearing will include witnesses if appropriate if either side brings them.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Kendall refused to take the case. She said this wasn't related to the Pro-Life Action League case currently before her. Turns out PP wanted its case to go before Kendall, which was likely a tip-off she may lean in favor of abortion.

This is great news.

UPDATE, 1:20p: Eric Scheidler just emailed this additional information on today's hearing, which he attended:

Planned Parenthood was asking Federal District Judge Charles Norgle to issue an injunction that would have required the City to let them open for business WITHOUT concluding the investigation into PP's dealings with the City.

Judge Charles Norgle listened to arguments from PP and the City for an hour, and decided a full hearing was required.

The hearing has been set for Thursday at 10 a.m. That means that Planned Parenthood will not open until Friday at the earliest.

One important point to keep in mind:

The question here is not whether PP can ever open. The question is whether their opening can be DELAYED while an investigation is concluded into the allegations raised into wether PP defrauded the City.

That question may be settled Thursday after a full hearing.

UPDATE, 1:47p: Here's the Chicago Tribune story on the hearing.

UPDATE, 7:43p: Here's a CBS 2 news t.v. report, which includes Eric Scheidler [HT: Paul W.]

FYI, I'll be on my friend Kevin McCullough's radio show on WMCA in New York sometime after 2:20p EST this afternoon, which can be heard live via the Internet if you don't live in the area.

We'll discuss the Aurora Planned Parenthood situation.

Kevin wrote a column on this yesterday, which was the most read on Townhall.com for the day.

Update, 12:40p: My segment will air at 3:20p and be available by podcast after 4p.

Here's another photo montage of Saturday's protest, formally called the Jericho March, at the Aurora Planned Parenthood abortion mill.

This little video has a 60s psychodelic edge to it with well done graphics work. It appears the "new media" role pro-lifers have had to assume, since MSM supports abortion, is growing not just to encompass journalism but also to bump up against liberal Hollywood with our own creative documentaries. Starting small, but who knows? www.fightingirishthomas.net made this one:

[HT: reader Mike]