Trust Women

“I was not willing to allow that terrorism to succeed … The people who are harmed by that are the women of Kansas.”

Dr. Cheryl Chastine, abortion provider

Five years ago today, freakazoid right-wing terrorist Scott Roeder murdered Dr. George Tiller.

Don't get mad; get even.  Trust Women.

It’s not easy to fill a job when the last person to hold it was murdered. But just over a year ago, that was what Julie Burkhart decided she had to do.

Murder was only the final act of violence committed against Dr. George Tiller, the abortion provider here, and his clinic, five years ago this week. By 2009, when anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder shot Tiller in the head during services at Tiller’s church, the doctor had already been shot in both arms – he continued performing abortions the next day – and his clinic had been bombed. Abortion opponents had blockaded his clinic repeatedly, and they had gone through the legal and political system (which had its own abuses).

 

“His is the only abortion clinic we’ve never been able to close,” Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, told The New York Times after Tiller’s death.

Roeder, who is serving life in prison for the May 31, 2009 murder, succeeded where others failed. But that wasn’t the end of the story.

Burkhart, who had run Tiller’s political action committee, told msnbc recently that after her mourning her boss, she wondered whether it was time to move onto something else: “I don’t know. Landscaping or something.”

But with Tiller’s clinic shuttered, women in the Wichita area were being forced to travel for hundreds of miles – from three to six hours each way – to end their pregnancies. It would be her task, Burkhart decided, to reopen in Tiller’s former cl

Bringing Abortion Back to Wichita

FUCK YOU, Scott Roeder. FUCK YOU, Operation Rescue. And FUCK YOU, Sam Brownback.

Rebeka Dryden at Maddowblog:

The shuttered abortion clinic once operated by the late Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas has been purchased by an abortion rights group with plans to open a new clinic at the site and resume abortion services there. The sale was first reported by the Wichita Eagle. There has been no known abortion provider in Wichita since Dr. Tiller was assassinated in 2009.

The new owner is the Trust Women Foundation. Director Julie Burkhart confirmed reports of the purchase. Burkhart is a former Tiller employee. After his death she founded the Trust Women PAC  to address access to abortion in under-served states. "Trust Women" was a favorite motto of Tiller's -- he is said to have worn a "Trust Women" button every day.

Burkhart says her goal for the new clinic is a health center that would provide first and early-second trimester abortions as well as a full range of OBGYN services. She'll need doctors who are both qualified and willing to provide those services in Wichita. Burkhart says she is talking to physicians both locally and from out-of-state. Under a Kansas law enacted last year, the clinic could be required to meet strict new architectural standards, and its doctors could be required to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. That law is currently tied up in court and would only apply if it's ultimately cleared. "Our strategy is whatever the law is, whatever they throw our way we will be able to abide by the letter of the law so women will be able to come in and get services," Burkhart says.

Burkhart hopes to open the new clinic in the first quarter of next year, but she's bracing herself for the opposition she expects to encounter as she tries to make that happen:

"I suspect that [the anti-abortion movement is] going to come out and protest. I suspect that they'll have some new bills up in Topeka. And I think that they'll be looking for any and every opportunity to hold us up, to close us up, and to slow us down."

Kari Ann Rinker, the Kansas state coordinator for the National Organization for Women, talks about the news with the same tone of cautious resolve. "Getting a building is a great accomplishment. We [in the abortion rights community] are all thrilled that [Burkhart] has been successful in this part of her journey. But there are still a lot of unknowns," she says, pointing to the clinic regulations that are tied up in court, pressure from anti-abortion groups like Operation Rescue, and new restrictions that may come out of what's expected to be a more conservative state legislature after November's elections. "We're happy, but we're all realistic and we know what happens here."

By "what happens" in Wichita, Rinker means what happened to local family doctor Mila Means after she announced, in 2010, her intention to begin providing abortion services in Wichita. There were protests at Means' family medical practice as well as her home, she received a letter warning that she'd need to check under her car for a bomb every day if she decided to provide abortions, and her landlord sued to block her from providing abortions at her existing medical practice.

Last year, when Dr. Means agreed not to provide abortions at her current practice, Operation Rescue declared victory and took credit for stopping her. When news of Burkhart's plans for Dr. Tiller’s old clinic broke this week, Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue said in a statement, "The abortion group may have bought Tiller’s old building, but that is still a far cry from resuming abortions in Wichita. If Trust Women wants to provide abortions then Operation Rescue will make sure the business is neither profitable nor sustainable."

I've contributed money to Trust Women since it was founded, and no donation among my annual two dozen gives me greater satisfaction. I'll be giving more this year, and with it a giant FUCK YOU, Operation Rescue.

Does Mitt Romney Support Scott Roeder?

Seriously, somebody ask him that question. I doubt Willard even knows who he is - and why should he? What does a repug billionaire care about just another redneck, red-state murderer?

But the repug base sure as fuck cares - Scott Roeder is their hero. And Willard better learn how to lie about that, too.

From Trust Women:

Three years ago (May 31), one of the most dedicated and tireless advocates of women and their right to reproductive freedom and healthcare was violently taken from this world. And, for three years, women in Wichita and surrounding areas have been without access to abortion care.

As Dr. Tiller said so many times, and which was pinned to his office wall, “It’s never too late to do the next right thing.” That attitude of his—that dedication—is what we have to remind ourselves of when things get tough, when another piece of insultingly anti-woman legislation is introduced, when another roadblock is thrown in our path. That attitude is what will help us restore access to the women of Wichita and surrounding areas. It’s never too late.

What we also must remember, when the rights of women are being assaulted, when sometimes it seems like it might be easier to just move on to something else, is that he would want us all, collectively, to get to work and find -- as he said so simply -- “solutions, not problems.”

Today, as we remember Dr. Tiller, let’s remember his wisdom and his drive, so we can do the next right thing, so we can find a solution—not harp on the problem. This movement is not about proving a point or winning a fight, it’s about getting women needed care.

Click here to help us do the next right thing. Help us restore access and honor Dr. Tiller’s memory by donating $31 today.

Your Monday Evening Do Not Miss TV

First, the last Jack Conway - Rand Paul debate will air on Kentucky Educational Television tomorrow at 8 p.m. Eastern. Watch the webcast live here.

Yours truly will attempt to live-blog it right here. Not sure I can type and post while screaming incoherently, so no promises.

Then switch over to MSNBC to The Assassination of Dr. George Tiller.

As you watch, remember that Rand Paul, along with virtually every other republican running for election or reelection to Congress this year, is a misogynistic hard-liner who believes victims of rape and incest should be forced to give birth to their assailant's spawn.

See the preview here.

Have you made calls for your Democratic Congressional candidate today?

Why You Can Never Give Freakazoids Any Power

Because in pursuit of their destructive superstition, they will break any law, commit any crime, ruin any life, undermine any constitutional democracy. Here's proof:

In a new ethics complaint that alleges large-scale abuse of office, the former attorney general of Kansas is accused of dispatching staff to record license plates of women entering George Tiller's abortion clinic, getting records from a motel where patients stayed, and obtaining state medical files under false pretenses, then retaining them after his term as AG was over and repeatedly lying about it in court.

All of this occurred during Attorney General Phill Kline's unsuccessful pursuit of Tiller, the doctor who ran Women's Health Care Services of Wichita and was shot to death, allegedly by an anti-abortion extremist, in 2009.

SNIP

In 2005, Kline successfully requested a subpoena for motel records from the La Quinta Inn in Wichita, where many of Tiller's patients stayed. The motel was forced to produce records of those who received a medical discount for lodging, a "detailed record of all telephone calls" to or from the patients' rooms, as well as the names of any traveling companions.

To identify patients of Tiller, Kline's office then compared the motel records with abortion records from the state department of health. That effort produced 221 possible names, according to the complaint.

Apparently not satisfied, Kline's staff then allegedly staked out Tiller's clinic, recording license plate numbers of visitors and employees. They then attempted to run the numbers through state databases to identify who was going to the clinic. That effort went on for the better part of a year, according to the complaint:

[B]etween January 2005, and the Fall of 2005, the respondent 's subordinates engaged in an effort to identify visitors and employees of Dr. Tiller's clinic by staking out the clinic, following visitors and employees to their vehicles and recording automobile license plate numbers. Attempts were made to run the numbers through state agencies in order to identify the name of the driver.

Kline deputy Eric Rucker allegedly later lied to the state Supreme Court when he said the AG was "not pursuing the identity of any adult woman who had obtained services" from the abortion clinic.

It gets worse. Read the whole thing.

No, this is not insanity. No, this is not an isolated case. No, this is not a fanatic who got carried away.

Kline is what passes today for mainstream repug. This is the kind of plain criminal who believes himself above the law because a bunch of illiterate Bronze Age desert nomads figured out a mythological justification for their misogyny.

Kline is proof that anyone who claims anti-choice beliefs should be automatically barred from public office.