Congratulations PP Aurora

The new Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora Illinois, which has been under seige by anti-choicers grasping at every possible legal straw to keep it from opening, opened its doors today:

"After three months of tumult and protest, Planned Parenthood opened its reproductive health-care clinic this morning without incident on Aurora's east side. Speaking to a crowd of about 50 clinic workers and supporters, Steve Trombley, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area, said the controversy over the center's opening was over." [...]
"The necessary permit was approved Monday after investigations by two independent attorneys and the Kane County state's attorney found no state laws or city ordinances were violated during the permit application process, said Mayor Tom Weisner. The city had no legal basis to deny the permit, he said."

Hmm, did I call it or did I call it? What would be most interesting to see is how much of the Taxpayers' Money (the same Taxpayers' Money that conservatives are forever bleating about) these bozos wasted in court time and lawyers' fees only to delay the opening of this clinic by 2 weeks. And how are the fetus fetishists reacting?

"As the opening of the clinic approached this morning, about 50 protesters had gathered on Oakhurst Drive, behind the building, in sight of a large pink banner reading, "This center is now open." The crowd was largely subdued, with some praying and reading from the Bible as about 15 police officers stood by. Some carried signs and one held up a poster of an aborted fetus."

Aborted fetus poster -- don't leave home without it.

Planned Parenthood Aurora -- anti-choicers ramp it up

It had to happen sooner or later that the notorious, gorious anti-abortion flyers would start hitting the front steps of homes in Aurora Illinois, where a controversial Planned Parenthood office has been under seige by anti-choicers for over a month now. The clinic has been kept from opening based on the accusation that PP hadn't acquired a "special use permit", but the fetus fetishists' case has taken a turn for the fucky and now appears to be a dead issue:

"Officials in Aurora are say that that the area in which the clinic was built is in what's called a "planned development district," and such districts are governed by separate zoning laws that don't appear to require special-use permits.

"That's the assumption upon which city staff proceeded," said Carie Anne Ergo, Aurora's public information officer."

Ahhhh. Then yesterday, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama threw his support behind the clinic:

"I fully support Planned Parenthood's desire to open a new facility in Aurora," he said in a statement released this afternoon. "The proposed center will serve the growing population in a part of the state where access to a full range of reproductive health care services is lacking."

The statement went on to list some of the services the Planned Parenthood clinic would offer such as pap tests, contraceptive care, cancer screening and breast exams. It did not mention abortion procedures, which have drawn thousands of anti-abortion protesters to demonstrate outside the clinic."

(Yes, but as a commenter at the link above points out, 95% of what PP does is not abortion. By the logic of these fetus fetishizing nitwits, my local hospital should be shut down because it performs abortions occasionally.)

When the going gets tough, the fetus fetishists get out the 4-colour fetus glossies:

NBC5's Anthony Ponce reported that a Milwaukee, Wis.-based group, calling itself "Missionaries to the Preborn" has distributed the fliers with the graphic images.

"Very disturbing-looking mutilated dead babies," said one resident. "I just don't think something like that should be shown to the public. There's better ways to bring that out." [...]

Even those residents who oppose abortion said they did not like the fliers. One woman said she did not like the photographs on the fliers.

Way to win hearts and minds, let the Mad Pamphleteers take over... d'oh! Planned Parenthood Aurora will be open before the end of October. (Care to make it interesting? Ten bucks.)