Posted by Thomas More Society (March 5, 2010 at 10:53 am)
Monica Miller, longtime pro-life activist and head of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society was a dear friend of activist Linda Schmidt, one of the ND 88 who died of cancer earlier this week. You can read Monica’s last letter to Linda after the break, a touching testament to Linda’s commitment to the pro-life cause. It has been requested that condolences and Mass cards to be sent to:
Larry Schmidt
9035 Mount Vernon Avenue
Milwaukee, WI 53226
May Linda’s soul and all the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercies of God rest in peace.
Posted by Thomas More Society (March 3, 2010 at 11:28 pm)
TMS renews call for Notre Dame President Fr. Jenkins to prefer human rights to property rights and ask the prosecutor to drop all charges against the ND 88
Chicago, Ill.—Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel of Chicago’s Thomas More Society—the national public interest law firm whose legal team is defending the Notre Dame 88—is sad to report the death of ND88 client Linda Schmidt who died after a courageous battle with terminal cancer.
“It is with a heavy heart that we report that Linda Schmidt died early last night. While she will be missed by her family and loved ones, as a woman of tremendous faith she will no doubt spend eternity with our Lord,” stated Brejcha. “But our grief at losing this dedicated pro-life heroine is greater given the grim truth that she lived her final days under this cloud of criminal charges instigated by Notre Dame, which remained pending even as she departed this life.”
Posted by Thomas More Society (February 19, 2010 at 11:42 am)
Emboldened by recent action in Chicago, Rockford, Illinois recently sought to enact a bubble zone ordinance to restrict pro-life counseling and prayer outside the abortion facility in the town. After TMS attorneys conatacted the city council, the measure was tabled for two months.
The media has caught wind of this important free-speech case. Below is a sampling of the media coverage on this story.
Posted by Thomas More Society (February 18, 2010 at 1:51 pm)
A great interview on the topic of the Personhood movement appeared on Moody Radio’s Primetime America on Tuesday, February 16.
The piece featured the Thomas More Society’s Paul Linton, who questions the legal theory behind Personhood, Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League, a client of the Thomas More Society, offering some perspective on where Personhood fits in the larger pro-life movement, and Keith Mason of Personhood USA explaining Personhood from the perspective of one of its biggest proponents.
The Catholic News Agency has put together this short video showing the abuse of the defendants in the case TMS is handling in Rockford, Illinois. The video is part of a larger story that can be read here.
Posted by Thomas More Society (February 11, 2010 at 11:29 am)
Rockford, Ill., Feb. 9—City of Rockford officials have tabled its recently proposed “bubble zone” ordinance for two months as they consider new objections from the Chicago-based Thomas More Society and local pro-life activists. Yesterday, attorneys from the Thomas More Society sent a letter to Rockford’s mayor and aldermen respectfully urging them to reject the bubble zone measure as ill-advised and unconstitutional.
Posted by Thomas More Society (February 9, 2010 at 1:09 pm)
In a letter to the Rockford, Illinois mayor and city council, Tom Brejcha laid out a powerful case for why the city should not pass the proposed “bubble zone” ordinance that would muzzle pro-life sidewalk counselors and hinder their life-saving work. Here’s an excerpt from Tom’s letter:
With respect, we urge that you disapprove this measure as fundamentally at odds with our nation’s profound commitment to the principle that discussion of pressing issues on which citizens may disagree should nonetheless be robust, uninhibited and wide open, even if sometimes unpleasantly sharp or even vehement.
. . .this measure would be “anti-choice,” as the whole notion of “choice” by an expectant mother whether or not to abort her infant presupposes that she have alternatives. [Pro-lifers] are there not to preclude legally-mandated “choice,” but rather to help women exercise their right to make a “choice” in a free and fully informed manner.
Local pro-lifers have also had input at city council meetings, including testimony from a woman who brought her baby with her who was alive today because of the work of sidewalk counselors.
This, in conjunction with the letter from TMS, caused the City Council to table the motion for two months for consideration. Read the full letter, as well as the Illinois Labor Dispute Act, which Tom referenced in his letter as crucial to the unconstitutionality of the bubble zone ordinance.
Posted by Thomas More Society (February 5, 2010 at 11:16 am)
In the wake of Chicago’s new bubble zone law restricting protest and counseling activities outside abortion clinics, the City Council of Rockford, Illinois is considering a similar ordinance. Tom Brejcha appeared before the City Council along with a number of Rockford pro-lifers on Monday, February 5 to testify against the proposed ordinance. It now appears the City Council will debate the measure in committee next week.
Rockford has been the center of abortion-related controversy for some time now. In fact, one of the the Thomas More Society’s ongoing cases is centered on Rockford’s abortion mill. Check out the most recent amended complaint in that case as well as news coverage of the bubble zone story below.
Posted by Thomas More Society (January 26, 2010 at 10:03 am)
Fr. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame who joined the Notre Dame delegation to the March for Life, held last Friday in Washington, D.C., came face to face with large banners urging him to “Free the ND88″ and many thousands of leaflets also calling out for his taking steps to end criminal prosecutions of the “ND88.”
Pro-Choice President at a Catholic University
These are 88 pro-lifers who peaceably bore witness to the sanctity of life last May, 2009, by entering upon Notre Dame’s famous campus just outside South Bend, Indiana, in a solemn, prayerful procession intended to counterbalance the anti-life message bound up with this Catholic university’s decision to invite pro-abortion president Obama to give the Commencement address to graduating students last May.
Notre Dame also saw fit to bestow an honorary doctor of laws degree on the president, whose Administration already had marked him as the most pro-abortion leader in our nation’s history. Indeed, the actual Commencement ceremony was utterly adulatory toward the president, without a word of dissent or opposition to his pro-abortion record, let alone to his pro-abortion agenda — an agenda that now includes a health care proposal that would negate the Hyde Amendment and usher in an era of tax-supported abortions, thereby assuring a vast expansion of abortion in the U.S., far from the touted net reduction in abortions that Mr. Obama had promised to work for as president during his run for office.
The statue of Our Lady, “Notre Dame,” who stands atop of the university’s famous Golden Dome and crowns its Main Building, might have wept real tears when the president was greeted with rousing applause during his nationally televised graduation speech when he advocated “stem cell research,” without distinguishing between embryonic stem cell research, which destroys innocent human lives but which his Administration now promotes, on one hand, and adult stem cell research, which pro-lifers support, which has proven to yield tangible medically successful results, and which does not harm or destroy any human lives.
Pro-Lifers Arrested for Peaceful, Prayerful Witness
It was mainly during the days leading up to the Commencement when those 88 pro-lifers, who were bearing a cross and/or praying the rosary and not causing any disturbance whatsoever, suddenly found themselves halted by campus security police and were then arrested and hauled off to jail in handcuffs.
Monica Miller, longtime pro-life activist and head of Citizens for a Pro-Life Society was a dear friend of activist Linda Schmidt, one of the ND 88 who died of cancer earlier this week. You can read Monica’s last letter to Linda after the break, a touching testament to Linda’s commitment to the pro-life cause. It has been requested that condolences and Mass cards to be sent to:
A great interview on the topic of the Personhood movement appeared on Moody Radio’s Primetime America on Tuesday, February 16.
In the wake of Chicago’s new bubble zone law restricting protest and counseling activities outside abortion clinics, the City Council of Rockford, Illinois is considering a similar ordinance. Tom Brejcha appeared before the City Council along with a number of Rockford pro-lifers on Monday, February 5 to testify against the proposed ordinance. It now appears the City Council will debate the measure in committee next week.
Fr. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame who joined the Notre Dame delegation to the March for Life, held last Friday in Washington, D.C., came face to face with large banners urging him to “Free the ND88″ and many thousands of leaflets also calling out for his taking steps to end criminal prosecutions of the “ND88.” 
The statue of Our Lady, “Notre Dame,” who stands atop of the university’s famous Golden Dome and crowns its Main Building, might have wept real tears when the president was greeted with rousing applause during his nationally televised graduation speech when he advocated “stem cell research,” without distinguishing between embryonic stem cell research, which destroys innocent human lives but which his Administration now promotes, on one hand, and adult stem cell research, which pro-lifers support, which has proven to yield tangible medically successful results, and which does not harm or destroy any human lives.