September 26, 2012

Abortion Rights Group Buys Dr. Tiller’s Clinic

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/sylvia_mcfadden/7298841994/sizes/m/in/photostream/">Sydigill</a>/Flickr

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Wichita clinic where Dr. George Tiller provided abortions may soon be back. The Wichita Eagle reports that the Trust Women Foundation has purchased the building that housed Women’s Health Care Services and intends to begin providing services there once again.

The clinic has been closed since an anti-abortion extremist murdered Tilller while the doctor served as an usher in his church in May 2009. The Trust Women Foundation and Political Action Committee is led by Julie Burkhart, a former spokesperson for the clinic and longtime pro-choice activist in Kansas. The Eagle reports that the foundation filed paperwork with the Secretary of State on Tuesday to purchase the clinic from Dr. Tiller’s widow.

This is big news for supporters of abortion rights in Wichita, which has had no abortion clinics since Tiller’s murder.  Anti-abortion activists within the Kansas legislature have been doing their best to make it really difficult to provide abortions in the state. Last year, legislators passed strict new building codes that threatened to close down all the clinics in the state. A judge blocked the law from taking effect, but the legal wrangling over it continues. Tiller’s clinic would likely have to make significant changes if the courts let that law go forward.

Meanwhile, the Kansas medical board has continued to relentlessly pursue Tiller’s former colleague, Kristin Neuhaus, taking away her license in June for her work at the clinic. Another doctor training to provide abortions in the city has been blocked by her landlord and had her life threatened by anti-abortion activists.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate