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Joe Scheidler, founder of the Pro-Life Action League in Chicago and one of the towering figures of the pro-life movement for decades, died of pneumonia Jan. 18 surrounded by his family at his home on Chicago’s Northwest Side. He was 93.
Funeral arrangements were pending.
Widely known as the “godfather of pro-life activism,” Scheidler began his life’s work fighting abortion in 1973, shortly after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalizing it. He founded the league in 1980 to recruit and equip pro-life Americans to be a voice for unborn children in their own communities.
Born in Hartford City, Ind. he served in the U.S. Navy as a military policeman at the end of World War II. He earned a bachelor’s degree in communications at the University of Notre Dame and a master’s at Marquette University.
He spent eight years in religious life, studying for the Catholic priesthood at St. Meinrad Seminary in Indiana.
After discerning that God was not calling him to the priesthood, he served as a teacher at Mundelein College.
His five decades of pro-life activism are recounted his 2016 memoir, “Racketeer for Life: Fighting the Culture of Death From the Sidewalk to the Supreme Court.”
Scheidler’s work as a pro-life activist took him to every state in the U.S. and countries on four continents, as well as through countless court battles, including the NOW v. Scheidler RICO case.
The longest case in U.S. federal court history, it made three trips to the U.S. Supreme Court, including 8-1 and 8-0 rulings in 2003 and 2006 “that fully vindicated him,” the Pro-Life Action League said in a news release.
“His 1985 book ‘Closed: 99 Ways to Stop Abortion,’ a centerpiece of the NOW v. Scheidler trial, became the manual for pro-life activists throughout the world,” the release said.
The suit was filed under the claim that Scheidler and other defendants had violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, “through a conspiracy to prevent women from accessing abortion services through the threat of violence or the implied threat of violence.”
Ultimately the Supreme Court rejected attempts to use racketeering laws against abortion clinic protesters.
With his ultimate victory in the landmark case, Scheidler “secured the rights of pro-life advocates across the United States to witness for life and protest outside of abortion clinics,” said the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based, non-profit law firm “actively involved in preserving the sanctity of human life and protecting the rights of life advocates.”
The firm said in a statement it credits its existence to “Scheidler’s iconic involvement with life advocacy.”
Scheidler is survived by his wife, Ann, and seven children, 26 grandchildren and one great-granddaughter. —CNS
