The Pro-Life League Comes To Loyola, Prompts Counter Protests

Content Warning: Abortion

Members of the Pro-Life Action League staged a protest Nov. 22 outside the Mundelein Center where they were met by counter-protestors.

The Chicago based anti-abortion group, founded in 1980 by Joe Scheidler, promotes an anti-abortion message primarily through public protest.

Pro-Life League Director of Communication Matt Yonke helped coordinate the protest and said he hoped to change peoples minds about abortion.

“We’re here with a very simple message that you see on these signs — that every one of these children is a life that’s been missed,” Yonke said.

He held aloft a sign displaying a detailed image of an aborted fetus with the caption, “She’ll never learn to walk.”

Yonke said the fetuses were stolen from an abortion clinic’s medical waste by anti-abortion activist Monica Miller. 

Monica Miller photographed the fetuses and embryos before burying them at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Evergreen Park, IL. Miller stole fetuses and embryos on multiple occasions and spent time in jail as a result, according to an interview with Celebrate Life Magazine.

He said he knew they were aborted at eight weeks because they’d been stored in plastic bags denoting their age.

Shortly after Pro-Life Action League members arrived on campus, students who opposed their message began a protest of their own –engaging in conversation and holding hastily made signs –including forth-year psychology major and film minor Leena Nabulsi . 

“How do you think a woman suffers when she has to carry a pregnancy to term she doesn’t want,” Nabulsi said.

Students held signs reading “Abortion is healthcare,” “Live Laugh Love Abortion,” “Not afraid to talk about abortion,” and “Gets no Bitches,” with an arrow pointing to a Pro-Life Action League member standing next to the student. 

Many students protesting against the Pro-Life Action League expressed their frustration with the way its members simplified the issue, which they said was more complex.

“We just ban abortion across the board — you don’t get rid of abortions,” Hannah Schmitt, a first-year social work major, said. “What happens is that women are always going to get abortions anyway.”

Yonke claimed a student spit on a Pro-Life Action League member, and he said Dean of Students Will Rodriguez, who was present for the duration of the protest, failed to discipline the student. 

“I’ve been extremely impressed by the student body here at Loyola,” Yonke said. “They are intelligent and articulate and have a lot of opinions, but I am deeply, deeply disappointed in the Dean of Students here.” 

Rodriguez said he was at the protest but didn’t see a student spit on a protestor.

Yonke’s camera didn’t capture the alleged spitting, which Hope Miller, a Pro-Life Action League member and granddaughter of its founder Joseph Schneider, said she was annoyed by.

Schneider was a significant anti-abortion activist often referred to as the “Godfather” of the anti-abortion movement and known for intense violent rhetoric, according to the New York Times. 

Miller said she was documenting the protest in order to create a non-biased documentary about what college students thought about abortion and to find effective techniques to communicate the anti-abortion message to college students.  

Pro-Life Action League member John Jansen said the league was surprised with the amount of student interaction they received as they hadn’t seen as much at the other campuses they’d visited, including the University of Chicago. 

Miller said Loyola was the most exciting school she’s visited because her anti-abortion activism was met with actual protestors.

“It feels like we’re making a difference even if they don’t agree with us,” Miller said. “The conversation is happening, and that’s a win.”

Miller began by interviewing students without revealing her affiliation with the Pro-Life Action League but later shifted to debating with students who disagreed with her stance.

“There has never been a case where you need to rip apart your baby to save the mother’s life,” Miller said. “However, if there is a case where the pregnancy is harming the woman, they may remove the baby as a way to preserve the mother.” 

There are multiple situations where abortion is medically necessary to save the mother including kidney failure and water breaking before 20 weeks of pregnancy, the Associated Press reported.

The Pro-Life Action League’s protest unintentionally coincided with the Students for Reproductive Justice’s weekly Free Condom Friday, where SJR members handed out free contraception and held signs which read “My Body My Choice.”

Though there were angry sentiments expressed by both The Pro-Life League activists and opposing students, the roughly two-hour event stayed relatively tame while debate ensued.