Dr. Tiller's Former Abortion Clinic is Reopening For Business

Trust Women Foundation, a non-profit abortion-rights group, has purchased Dr. George Tiller’s former Wichita abortion clinic, which had been on the market ever since Tiller was murdered at church by an anti-choicer.

This is fantastic news, since Kansas only has three abortion clinics, and all of them are in the Kansas City area. Thanks to new state restrictions, the much-needed clinic won’t offer the controversial late term abortions of Tiller’s day, but they will perform first and early second trimester abortions.

“It’s about more than abortion. We’re about serving the needs of women,” Julie Burkhart, a former employee of Tiller’s, said during a telephone interview with the AP — a statement she’ll almost certainly be forced to repeat over and over again. “Thousands of women right now have to travel three hours-plus for medical services. It’s a burden on women. It’s a burden on women’s families.”

Local anti-abortion groups said they had been waiting for something like this to happen — we guess they have nothing better to do with their time, like actually help care for living, breathing people — and that it was “tragic” that Burkhart was back in business. Burkhart did admit the group had considered the site’s troubled past before purchasing the clinic (which they did because it was the best choice available, not for any symbolic reasons), but said she thought they could definitely work past the stigma. “We want to work to take the abortion piece of health care out of the corner and normalize it,” Burkhart said. “Women should not be ashamed. Women should not be intimidated.”