Pro-lifers prevail.(Making A Difference)

During the summer of 2002, the Waco-McLennan County Public Library System in Texas signed a "memorandum of understanding" with Planned Parenthood of Central Texas (PPCT) authorizing the pro-abortion organization to use the library's cataloging system in exchange for ready access to the PPCT's Audre Rapoport Library of human sexuality and health books, pamphlets, curricula, teaching aides, and videos. The pact made the PPCT's library a de facto branch of the county system. It specified that PPCT library patrons could check out materials from any of the county system's four library locations by requesting that they be delivered to PPCT, and that public library card holders could return materials to the PPCT facility regardless of where they had originally been checked out.

When news of the agreement became public, local pro-life activists began speaking out against it and imploring city leaders to terminate the arrangement on grounds, among others, that allowing a private entity to meld with the county system in such a manner was illegal, and was also discriminatory, since other nonprofit organizations were not extended the same privilege.

Their pleas largely fell on deaf ears, and the agreement stayed in place. In October, during a Planned Parenthood open house intended to showcase the Audre Rapoport Library to the public, PPCT officials spotted, and barred from the open house, three peaceful, pro-life visitors. The PPCT, you see, has a patron policy stating: "Planned Parenthood of Central Texas reserves the right to deny access to the Audre Rapoport Library to anyone who may be a security risk."

On April 9th of this ...