Joseph M Scheidler

A former ad executive, Scheidler pioneered a militant style of direct-action anti abortion protest during the 1980s before winning a decades-long lawsuit that accused him of racketeering and extortion. died on Monday January 18 2021 at his home in Chicago. He was 93. His son Eric said the cause was pneumonia. He and his organization, the Pro-Life Action League, were often at odds with the National Right to Life Committee, the more mainstream anti-abortion group, which believed that his incendiary rhetoric encouraged violence and public backlash. In 1986 the National Organization for Women sued him, arguing that by threatening to impede the work of abortion clinics, he was guilty of extortion and racketeering — one reason his allies and adversaries alike called him the “godfather” of the anti-abortion movement. The lawsuit, which he eventually won, lasted 20 years, one of the longest federal cases in history. Mr. Scheidler enlisted in the Navy after high school and later attended Notre Dame. After graduating, he remained in town as a reporter for The South Bend Tribune before entering a seminary, intent on becoming a Benedictine monk. But he withdrew days before his ordination. Mr. Scheidler received a master’s degree from Marquette University and taught at Mundelein College, a women’s school in Chicago, where he met Ann Crowley. They married in 1965 In addition to his son Eric, who succeeded him as director of the Pro-Life Action League, he is survived by his wife, Ann Scheidler, the league’s chairwoman; his sons Joseph, Peter and Matthias; his daughters Catherine Miller, Annie Casselman and Sarah Worthington; a brother, James Scheidler; a sister, Eleanor McNamara; 27 grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.