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player ready...Cook County Board President Richard Phelan finally won the backing Friday of the County Board in his plans to resume elective abortions at Cook County Hospital.
But while Phelan said the vote gave him all he needed to go into court and lift a temporary restraining order that prevented the board president from using his executive authority to end a 12-year abortion ban, opponents weren`t so sure.
”If the executive order was unlawful to begin with, what does acknowledging an unlawful order accomplish?” said Joseph Morris, an attorney for the commissioners who have taken Phelan to court over it.
Morris and attorneys for Phelan returned to court Friday afternoon for a hearing during which an attorney for Phelan planned to ask that the restraining order be removed.
If the order is lifted immediately, Hospital Director Ruth Rothstein said it would take the hospital until Aug. 24 to gear up to perform elective abortions.
But while Phelan was talking as though he had won the battle, it was still unclear whether approval of the measure Friday would be enough to resolve the dispute.
The vote to back Phelan, which came after a two-hour, sometimes tense meeting, was about as expected. The vote was 10 to 2 with four commissioners, including three who had sued Phelan, voting present.
John Stroger (D-Chicago) and Ted Lechowicz (D-Maywood) cast no votes, with John Daley (D-Chicago), Mary McDonald (R-Lincolnwood), Richard Seibel (R- Northbrook), and Herbert Schumann (R-Palos Hills) voting present. McDonald, Seibel and Schumann said they voted present because they are parties, along with Stroger, in the lawsuit.
At issue was a strangely worded resolution that asked the commissioners to ”acknowledge” Phelan`s use of his executive authority in issuing an order June 18 that reinstated abortions at the hospital.
The resolution referred to the executive order only by its number and doesn`t even use the word abortion. It also implied that a vote for the resolution wasn`t an endorsement of the task force report that outlined plans to resume abortions.
That provision, which was devised by Phelan and his staff, made the resolution palatable to two commissioners whose votes were necessary to pass the resolution Friday, Marco Domico (D-Chicago) and Robert Gooley (R-Homewood).
Both continued to insist Friday that the resolution had nothing to do with abortions. They said they voted for the measure only because they didn`t want to interfere with what they said was Phelan`s executive authority.