Pennsylvania Supreme Court won't hear Planned Parenthood's appeal

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Still Abortion-Free

By Laura Antkowiak

Pro-life citizens in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, scored another victory for the unborn in June, when the state Supreme Court refused to hear Planned Parenthood's appeal of a lower court decision which foiled its plans to begin performing abortions. Thanks to this June 5 decision, unborn babies will not be killed at Planned Parenthood's Lancaster facility in the foreseeable future.

The high court action marked the latest in a string of victories by determined pro-lifers which began in September 1998, when Planned Parenthood of the Susquehanna Valley announced that it would start performing abortions at its Lancaster center. At the time of the announcement, no abortion facility - - affiliated with Planned Parenthood or otherwise - - operated in Lancaster.

Community members sprung into action immediately, forming a group called Lancaster United for Life (LUFL). The group expressed its strong opposition to abortion through prayer, petitions, advertising, speakers, and peaceful, legal pro-life marches.

There were a number of issues - - zoning laws, building codes, and health protections - - which prevented Planned Parenthood from moving forward with its expansion plans. (For more detail, see NRL News, August 2000.)

The key legal roadblock for Planned Parenthood was that the local zoning ordinance prohibits surgical procedures on the clinic's property, which is in a downtown area zoned residential.

Lancaster zoning officials initially ruled that local codes for the property did not permit abortion. They backed down, however, when Planned Parenthood argued that abortion was a "natural expansion" of its clinic offerings.

Undaunted, pro-life citizens raised the money to hire an attorney to appeal the zoning board's decision to the County Court of Common Pleas. In February 2000, Judge Paul K. Allison ruled decisively against local officials.

Judge Allison held that zoning laws did not permit abortion, that abortion was not a "natural expansion" of Planned Parenthood's business, and that Planned Parenthood might already be violating the zoning law in performing other procedures.

Judge Allison also wrote that, in giving Planned Parenthood permission to proceed with its abortion plans, the zoning board had "disregarded the record, abused its discretion, and committed an error of law."

Planned Parenthood appealed this ruling to the state Commonwealth Court. When this court agreed with Judge Allison's decision, Planned Parenthood took its bid to perform abortions to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

However, the state high court refused to hear Planned Parenthood's appeal, meaning Judge Allison's ruling stands.

In spite of the defeat, Nancy Osgood, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood of the Susquehanna Valley, vowed to "pursue any and all options" to bring abortion to Lancaster.

Meanwhile, LUFL spokesperson and former county commission Jim Huber applauded the decision as "exhilarating news." He told the Lancaster New Era, "It certainly is a victory for pro-life people in Lancaster County, for supporters of the sanctity of life and all the people who oppose abortion."

Update on the Quad Cities

Last August, NRL News reported on the long history of pro-life efforts to keep an abortion facility out of the Quad Cities area on the Iowa/Illinois border.

Nearly six years after announcing that it wanted to build the Quad Cities' first abortion facility, Planned Parenthood finally began abortions at its Bettendorf facility in fall 2000.

Small victories remain, however. According to local pro-lifers, Planned Parenthood still has not found a full-time, on site abortionist and must bring in someone from out of town to kill babies.

Knowing that something else needed to be done, the group that opposed the abortion facility for so many years turned its attention to the construction of a free pro-life medical clinic across the street from Planned Parenthood. Now in the final stage of its capital campaign, the Life and Family Educational Trust hopes to have the Women's Choice Center built by Christmas. Its services will include pregnancy testing; counseling; referrals for adoption, social services, and legal assistance; and medical care, including ultrasound.

Kathryn Bohn of the Life and Family Educational Trust told NRL News that pro-lifers are excited about this opportunity to be a "light across the street" that will "give women better choices."

Currently the group works out of a temporary office, and the construction site is marked by a billboard from which a baby pleads, "Mommy please let me live."

In January, this pro-life ministry saved its first baby, an 11-week-old unborn baby boy, whose parents saw the sign on their way to abort him.

A painter at the construction site took the parents to a pro-life counselor. After speaking with the counselor, the parents agreed to see a doctor.

The doctor showed the parents an ultrasound of their baby, and when they saw him moving his arms and legs inside his mother, they could not end his life.

This experience holds a powerful lesson for the pro-life cause. In the face of disappointment, Bohn says that miracles like this baby boy's life are about "never giving up."