Pro-life conference settles in Oak Brook

• Reprints

Updated: April 2, 2012 1:55AM

More than 30 pro-life organizations gathered in Oak Brook last weekend for the 2012 Speak Out Illinois Conference, while other various pro-choice organizations set up just outside.

About 400 adults and 150 teenagers signed up to attend the conference while about two dozen protested on Spring Road just outside the Oak Brook DoubleTree Hotel.

Speak Out keynote speaker Abby Johnson was a former Planned Parenthood employee whose own pregnancy and experiences led her to resign from the organization and take a pro-life stance.

She initially thought her baby might miscarry, but after showing her ultrasound to a doctor at her employer, found nothing to be wrong with her child.

“I jumped up, we hugged and we were laughing,” Johnson said. “Five minutes later, we were performing our first abortion procedure of the day.

“That was the inconsistency of my life for eight years.”

Johnson later worked an ultrasound during an abortion procedure and the sight would change her forever.

“That baby was frantic,” Johnson said. “This mother had no idea that her little baby boy that day was desperately in need of her protection.

“The image of that baby fighting for its life has never left my mind.”

Johnson resigned from her job as a clinic director at Planned Parenthood in 2009 and has been spreading her pro-life views ever since.

During her keynote address, Johnson made several claims and accusations against Planned Parenthood ranging from uncleanly facilities, charging vulnerable parents more money for the procedure and believing abortions to be unsafe.

Outside the DoubleTree, protesters braved the cold and wind to voice their dissatisfaction with the organizations represented inside.

“We thought we’d come to their turf instead of them at our clinics,” said Corrie Westing of Occupy Chicago. “We’re here to counter their anti-women, anti-health care and anti-gay message and put forward a message of trusting women and equality.”

Event emcee Peter Breen and protester Ryne Poelker may have different view points, but both cited their first amendment rights as the main reason each showed up Saturday morning.

“Although we are small in numbers and it is freezing out here, we’re not going anywhere until women are seen as equal and have full bodily autonomy,” said Judy Heithmar of Join the Impact Chicago.

Event co-coordinator Tommie Romano said the event, held since 1991, is about educating and providing information to individuals attending.

“We’re here not just to change the law, but to change the hearts and minds,” Romano said. “We want to get the word out to women and get the truth out.”