Kansas abortion provider counters ‘devastation’ inflicted by restrictions on out-of-state patients

New podcast episode: Emily Wales, CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, discusses challenges of Kansas’ abortion landscape

Rachel Mipro
Aug 28, 2023

OVERLAND PARK — One mirrored building wall of the Planned Parenthood Great Plains office is covered with a painted uterus, with flowers drawn on the side and and a fist in the middle, punching up at a sunflower. Next to it is a slogan, bearing the phrase in giant words, “Thank you Kansas Voters!”

Look at either of these images too long, or take pictures of it, and out comes a security guard, ready to make sure the observer doesn’t harbor ill intent.

Continued: https://kansasreflector.com/2023/08/28/kansas-abortion-provider-counters-devastation-inflicted-by-restrictions-on-out-of-state-patients/

28.08.2023

Commentary

Dr. George Tiller

Emily Wales

Planned Parenthood Great Plains

Women’s Right to Know Act

The doctors bringing abortion care from SF General to Wichita

by GRIFFIN JONES
JULY 27, 2023

A 19-year-old girl walks up to the clinic’s front desk, a couple of her friends trailing behind. Everyone is yawning after the eight-hour overnight drive from eastern Arkansas to Wichita, Kansas. After a wait, the woman is ushered into a private room and greeted by Dr. Jennifer Kerns, an abortion provider, who relays the encounter.

Kerns, too, arrived that morning after an eight-hour journey of her own, via several flights from San Francisco to Kansas.

Continued: https://missionlocal.org/2023/07/the-doctors-bringing-abortion-care-from-san-francisco-general-to-wichita/

27.07.2023

traveling for abortion

‘It’s Not Just the Fringe Who Are Committing These Violent Acts’

By Sarah Jones, senior writer for Intelligencer
June 11, 2023

In April, abortion provider Julie Burkhart opened her newest clinic, Wellspring Health Access, in Casper, Wyoming. Wellspring is the only clinic to provide surgical abortions in the state, and its opening had been delayed for months because an anti-abortion activist allegedly set fire to it while it was under construction. As a former employee of Dr. George Tiller, who was assassinated in 2009, Burkhart has seen the anti-abortion movement at its most violent and remains determined to provide abortion care. Though the future for abortion rights in Wyoming looks uncertain, Wellspring is taking appointments and providing a full range of reproductive-health services to people in Casper and the surrounding area. While the clinic provides care, it also fights to keep abortion legal in Wyoming. Attorneys for Wellspring have joined a group of plaintiffs challenging two recent anti-abortion laws in Wyoming: One would ban medication abortion and is set to take effect in July, and the other is a near-total abortion ban, which is on hold as litigation proceeds.

I spoke with Burkhart about her work, the future of Wellspring, and the importance of providing abortion care in rural areas and Republican-led states like Wyoming. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Continued: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/people-of-all-walks-need-access-to-abortion-care.html

11.06.2023

Wellspring Health Access

Prominent Colorado abortion provider calls Dobbs decision ‘throwback to another century’

Dr. Warren Hern, who has performed thousands of abortions in nearly 50 years of practice, says, ‘This is the worst situation I’ve seen in this country in my life.’

By Rebekah Sager
June 01, 2023

For nearly five decades, Dr. Warren Hern has specialized in providing abortions to people who need them in the late stages of pregnancy. He says he is unwavering in his commitment to helping people obtain abortion care.

Hern tells the American Independent Foundation that pregnant people travel to his Boulder, Colorado, office because they know he will provide abortions in the first, second, or third trimester if needed.

Continued: https://americanindependent.com/prominent-abortion-provider-dobbs-decision-throwback/

01.06.2023

Commentary

Deborah Dorbert

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

USA – THE ABORTION ABSOLUTIST

Warren Hern has been performing late abortions for half a century. After Roe, he is as busy with patients as ever.

By Elaine Godfrey
MAY 12, 2023

The sky above Boulder was dark when the abortion doctor picked me up for dinner. I had to squint to recognize Warren Hern in his thick aviator glasses and fur-trapper hat.

At the restaurant—a kitschy Italian spot along a pedestrian mall—Hern ignored the table the waiter offered us, pointed at one in the corner, and clomped over in his heavy hiking boots. He’d like to order right away, he said: the osso buco and a glass of Spanish red. How long will that take?

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/05/dr-warren-hern-abortion-post-roe/674000/

USA – Outspoken abortion provider LeRoy ‘Lee’ Carhart dies at 81

by Lisa Baumann, The Associated Press
Apr 28, 2023

LeRoy “Lee” Carhart, who emerged from a two-decade career as an Air Force surgeon to become one of the best-known late-term abortion providers in the United States, has died. He was 81.

Carhart died Friday, according to Clinics for Abortions & Reproductive Excellence in Bellevue, Nebraska, where he was the medical director. His cause of death was not released by the clinic.

Carhart began focusing on abortions after retiring from the Air Force in 1985. He was one of only a handful of late-term abortion providers in the U.S. and was among the most vocal.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/leroy-lee-carhart-dead-a8f547515880406fa20b2be32fa6a3be

Abortion clinics regroup, rebuild after violent attacks: ‘There’s more work to be done’

Christine Fernando, USA TODAY
March 25, 2023

As a detective led her through the charred remains of the clinic, Julie Burkhart was heartbroken. Everything was black and melted. The smell was overwhelming. Fire and smoke damage had engulfed the building from the basement to the attic.

“I knew then that we were going to have a long road ahead,” said Burkhart, president of Wellspring Health Access in Casper, Wyoming.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/03/25/abortion-clinics-violence-attacks-rebound-rebuilding/11484439002/

25.03.2023

anti-choice terrorism

anti-choice violence

Dr. Colleen McNicholas

Dr. David Gunn

Dr. George Tiller

Feminist Majority Foundation

National Abortion Federation

Patti Pace-Halpin

Planned Parenthood of Illinois

Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri

pro-life killings

pro-life violence

Trust Women clinic

Trust Women Foundation

Wellspring Health Access

FBI investigating growing attacks on abortion and reproductive health clinics

Christine Fernando, USA TODAY
Jan 30, 2023

The FBI is asking for the public's help in investigating a spate of unsolved attacks against reproductive health facilities nationwide after an Illinois man was charged Wednesday with setting fire to a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Tyler W. Massengill, 32, of Chillicothe, just north of Peoria in central Illinois, was arrested Tuesday after being accused of “malicious use of fire and an explosive to damage, and attempt to damage" the Peoria clinic, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/01/30/peoria-planned-parenthood-fire-illinois-man-arrested/11132693002/

Before Roe, a Baptist Preacher Performed Abortions in Secret. Now He’s Helping Texans.

Dr. Curtis Boyd’s career encapsulates our long-fought abortion wars.

CECILIA NOWELL
Dec 14, 2022

The first thing Dr. Curtis Boyd did when he arrived at work one cloudy Monday morning in January was turn on his radio. It was 1973, and Boyd, an ordained Baptist minister, had been providing underground abortions for five years, most recently out of a mountaintop house in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The only people who knew the location of his clinic were members of the Clergy Consultation Service, a national network of faith leaders that discretely connected patients to reliable, and safe, doctors. As far as Boyd knew, he was the network’s only provider in the Southwest.

A group of Texas women had flown in that morning for appointments, but Boyd was distracted. A Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade was expected any day now. He kept one ear tuned to the news as he readied himself for the day. When the story broke that the Supreme Court had recognized the right to an abortion, Boyd and his nurse “looked at each other somewhat in shock” and then embraced. “It’s over, it’s over, thank God at last it’s over,” he says. He no longer had to live in fear that he—or worse, one of his patients—might end up in jail.

Continued: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/12/curtis-boyd-abortion-clergy-consultation-service-preacher-texas-new-mexico-roe/

After clinic arson, abortion rights advocates in Wyoming step up their fight

Lawmakers want to ban abortion. Advocates are confident that Wyoming’s constitution protects access — and they’re fighting in court to prove it.

Jordan Smith
October 15 2022

THE SUN WAS just coming up on May 25 when Julie Burkhart’s phone rang.

Burkhart had arrived in Casper, Wyoming, a day earlier to check on renovations to a new abortion clinic she was opening on East Second Street. The final cleaning in preparation for opening day was scheduled for the end of the week. That evening she’d done a walk-through; all looked good. But when she heard the voice of one of her contractors on the other end of the line, she knew something was wrong. “I was thinking there’s a plumbing issue,” she recalled. “‘There was a water break, right?’”

Continued: https://theintercept.com/2022/10/15/wyoming-abortion-clinic-arson/