Aurora residents Shawn R. Pawlak, 24, and Kelly L. Mahan, 27, confronted the pro-life protesters on Sunday outside the construction site.
According to a Suburban Chicago News report, they shouted obscenities at the pro-life people and knocked over small white crosses that had been set up to mourn the loss of life at abortion centers across the country.
Pawlak received battery of a protester charges and Mahan was booked on disorderly conduct. Both were released after posting bail, police said, and they will appear in Aurora Branch Court on the morning of September 11.
Over the weekend, hundreds of pro-life advocates in this northern Illinois city listened to pro-life leaders from across the country as they rallied in opposition to a new abortion business Planned Parenthood is almost done building there. They don't believe it's possible to close down the new center but they hope to raise public opinion against it.
Eric Scheidler, an Aurora resident who heads up the Pro-Life Action League, brought in the other pro-life leaders and said that members of the community never expected "an abortionist as their neighbor."
"We don't want Planned Parenthood in Aurora, Illinois," he added. "Whether it's 40 days of prayers or 40 years of effort, we will shut down the abortion fortress of Aurora."
A handful of abortion advocates counter-protested at the event.
They brought signs, including one with a coat hanger and the words "Never Again" -- an attempt to recreate history with claims that thousands of women died from illegal abortions. They said nothing of the women who have died from legal ones.
Naperville resident John McCollum told the newspaper that "We feel quite strongly in a woman's right to choose. Everybody should be a wanted baby."
The pro-abortion protesters had to be confined on a sidewalk off to the side because they didn't obtain a permit to protest as the pro-life advocates did.
The new
abortion center, located at 240 N. Oakhurst Drive in the DuPage County section
of Aurora, is set to open September 18.
