During “the Summer of Mercy,” members of a bellicose antiabortion group traveled to Wichita in droves, swarming abortion clinics. The next month and a half would radically change the politics of abortion in Kansas.
In 2009, Dea Deujsch participates in a vigil in Wichita for physician George Tiller, who was murdered by an antiabortion extremist. By Reis Thebault Reis Thebault National and breaking news reporter Email Bio Follow April 27 at 8:00 AM Julie Burkhart was in her early 20s when she responded to the person yelling at her as she walked into work. How could she ever take a job at a place like that? the woman wanted to know.
Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry prays outside the Women's Health Care Services abortion clinic in Wichita in 1991. Nearly three decades later, Burkhart sat down at her desk in a women’s clinic not far from the place where she first encountered the antiabortion activists. On Friday, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state’s constitution fundamentally protects abortion rights.
[Kansas Supreme Court rules state constitution protects abortion rights, a decision that could lead to challenges in other states]“The protests are pretty much what got people out of the pews, into the streets and then into the political arena,” said Judy Thomas, a reporter who covered the story and now works at the Kansas City Star, in an interview with the podcast My Fellow Kansans.
When the clinic was scheduled to perform abortions on the same day as a large Operation Rescue rally, Burkhart and her colleagues would sometimes arrive at work before sunrise to beat the protesters. Sometimes, the staff would have to sleep in the clinic.“It made me angry that somebody would stand on a sidewalk and would pretend to understand who I was as a person, and my situation, or anyone else’s situation in life,” she said.
Tiller was one of the only doctors in the country who performed abortions late in pregnancy. His work made him a constant target of violent threats. His clinic was bombed. In 1993, he was shot in the arm. Antiabortion groups mounted vigorous legal challenges, attempting to shutter his practice.
Malaysia Latest News, Malaysia Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Living in Australia, Brett Brown once stole eggs from an emu's nest for an omeletThe rise of Brett Brown and the rise of basketball in Australia paralleled each other. Many of the Australians in the NBA -- past and present -- have ties to Brown, including Kyrie Irving and Ben Simmons.
Read more »
‘Redaction’ Once Simply Meant to Organize or EditThe word’s history stretches back to ancient Rome and Thomas Jefferson before it became a term for concealing sensitive text, as in the release of the Mueller report
Read more »
For Christians in Sri Lanka, violence is at once old and newThe Christian minority faces violence and discrimination in Sri Lanka, but attacks on this scale are without precedent.
Read more »
Once a robust part of Washington’s social fabric, a men’s garden club meets its quiet endAfter 73 years, it has fallen to the club’s president to disperse the club’s remaining funds and turn out the lights.
Read more »
Jerrie Cobb, decorated pilot once in line to become first female astronaut, dies at 88She performed better than many of her male peers, but in the early 1960s NASA decided against sending women into space.
Read more »
Rodeo Road to be renamed Obama Boulevard, with festival where he once campaignedRodeo Road — a 3.5-mile residential street in a predominantly African American community in L.A. — is being renamed after the former president, who held a campaign rally there in 2007 before he was elected.
Read more »
Trump's Fed pick Moore in trouble again, once called Cincinnati and Cleveland 'armpits of America'President Donald Trump's pick to a fill a vacancy at the Federal Reserve has run into more trouble thanks to remarks he made in the past.
Read more »