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 Then it was revealed that the company, Gemini Office Development, is a subsidiary of Planned Parenthood
-- and that the building would include space where abortions would be performed.
Now, the 22,000-square foot, $7.5 million building in this suburb 35 miles west of Chicago stands finished but empty while the city investigates whether any building permit laws were broken.
A federal judge could decide as soon as Thursday to order local officials to allow the clinic to open. That prospect has drawn round-the-clock protests to the site by anti-abortion activists.
The facility will be run by Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area, and that group's president and CEO, Steve Trombley, said the Gemini Office Development name was used to protect the clinic's staff and construction workers from the types of protests happening now.
A rally a month ago attracted about 1,000 people; last weekend 600 anti-abortion activists marched in smaller groups through a nearby neighborhood.
Eric Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League said he held a teleconference this week with activists in more than 80 cities about a prayer vigil outside the clinic that has continued for more than 40 days.
"Am I glad that Planned Parenthood by being dishonest gave us an opportunity to shut them down in Aurora? I sure am," Scheidler said. "I rejoice in it."
Trombley maintains the group always truthfully answered questions from city officials and was clear the building would hold a medical facility.
In a telephone interview, Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, defended the use of Gemini as "prudent" and stressed that the clinic will offer a wide range of women's health care. Abortions account for about 10 percent of the services performed by Planned Parenthood in the Chicago area.
"Ground zero in the fight for women's access to reproductive health care just landed in a town in the middle of America," Richards wrote in a recent e-mail to supporters.
The head of another organization supporting Planned Parenthood said the clinic is being unfairly targeted by people trying to politicize a local permitting process.
"It's not fraud," said Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women. "If you say you're opening a medical clinic and performing legal medical procedures, it shouldn't matter if it's plastic surgery or podiatry or dentistry or women's reproductive health care."
The city of Aurora hired an outside attorney to review hundreds of pages of documents related to the building and permitting process, public testimony and local laws.
Aurora spokeswoman Carie Anne Ergo said mayor Thomas Weisner's "biggest concern is to get to the bottom of all the speculation and find out: Were the city of Aurora's local laws followed?"
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 Aurora doesn't want the clinic to open while the review is under way; Planned Parenthood asked a federal judge to issue a preliminary injunction requiring the city to allow the facility to open Tuesday of this week as scheduled. Instead the judge ordered both sides to return for a Thursday hearing.
On Tuesday, Planned Parenthood instead held an open house for supporters only. Pink balloons flew outside the structure, which has security cameras along the perimeter and no windows at ground level.
Randall Doubet-King, a member of the Planned Parenthood/Chicago Area board is optimistic the clinic will be able to open soon, but feels his group "underestimated how organized the opposition was."
While the event was under way, more than a dozen opponents of the clinic walked in circles on a nearby sidewalk, holding signs like "Stop Abortion Now" and occasionally getting honks from motorists.
Laura Kurek, 39, of Aurora, said she has long opposed abortion but never got involved at the grass-roots level until she learned of the clinic opening in her town.
She's spent many of her evenings for the past month helping staff the prayer vigil, sometimes with her 16-year-old son. She doesn't believe Planned Parenthood should be able to provide teenagers with birth control and is concerned the clinic is located near schools.
"I think what a parent teaches their kids should stand," she said. "I don't want anyone interfering with the morals I put on my son."
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On the Net:
Planned Parenthood: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/
Pro-Life Action Network: http://www.prolifeaction.org/
City of Aurora:
http://www.aurora-il.org/
[Associated Press; by Tara
Burghart]
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
redistributed.
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