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Activists feel called to protest at Hinsdale clinic
A small group gathers in front of the ACU Health Center and say the rosary, the divine mercy chaplet, other prayers and offer information for alternatives to abortions. | Dan Luedert~Sun-Times Media
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Updated: September 10, 2012 1:59AM
HINSDALE – Local activists fight abortion with prayers, rosaries and, sometimes, graphic pictures of aborted babies.
The Pro-Life Action League organized its annual Face the Truth protests at busy intersections throughout the Chicago area this week, from Lake Zurich to Naperville. Demonstrators held large signs, some with pictures of healthy babies, some with pictures of aborted babies.
Though not members of the league, Mary Goy, Judy Cormack and Dolores Trefelner participated in the demonstration Monday morning at Cass and Ogden avenues in Westmont.
Trefelner, who lives in Willowbrook, said the signs the protesters held were “kind of ghastly. But when you see them, you understand that murder has just taken place in the woman’s womb.
“When you see these things, you’re shocked, because for so long, they’ve tried to pass off the abortion as a blob of tissue that was being removed.”
“There are two victims, the woman herself and the baby,” Trefelner said. “But we can’t show what happens psychologically to the woman.”
The action league’s campaign will stop at at least 15 locations between July 6 and July 14.
But Trefelner’s, Goy’s and Cormack’s pro-life fight is not a once a year or once a month commitment. The Catholic women or their colleagues meet on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in front of ACU Health Center, Ltd., 736 N. York Road, Hinsdale, where abortions are performed, along with gynecological services.
Last week, standing under an umbrella to shield them from the bright sun and 95-degree heat, they said the rosary and other prayers for the people involved with abortion. Typically, they spend from 45 minutes to an hour at their post. Their signs are not shocking. They showed the Virgin Mary and read, “Jesus loves the little unborn children.”
Goy, who lives in Hinsdale, has been coming about once a week for a year and a half.
“It took me a long time to decide to join them,” said Goy, who was familiar with the practice and had seen people standing and praying there. “I said to myself what are you waiting for? This is something that should be done. . . . You have to just stand up and do it.”
To Goy, it manifests “the tragedy of abortion. It’s a tragedy for our country, it’s a tragedy for the people involved and it’s a tragedy for society.”
Officials from the ACU Health Center did not return calls for comment.
The very first day Goy demonstrated, a man she knew drove by and recognized her. He hadn’t realized there was an abortion clinic in Hinsdale until she told him why she was out there.
He did not react as though he thought Goy were a zealot or militant, she said.
“We are there saying prayers. How militant is that?” Goy asked.
She prays for the unborn babies, the women getting abortions, the men who fathered the babies and the clinic employees.
“It’s a positive thing to do for the person. They see that someone cares about what they are doing.”
The activists may call out with offers of information about counseling and other services as alternatives to abortion to the people entering the medical center.
They do not approach the people, nor do they try to stop them.
“It’s unusual that we speak to people,” Cormack of Clarendon Hills said. “Most of the time they do not come up to us.”
“I’m certainly not going to violate any laws,” Goy said.
But she hopes their continued presence will cause people to think about what is going on in their town.
“It’s close to home, it’s not someplace else,” Goy said.
Cormack believes as a Christian, it’s her responsibility to stand up for people whose rights are being taken away, including the unborn.
“I don’t want God to say to me, ‘Where were you when this was going on?’”
