An Example of Why it is So Important to Thank an Abortion Provider
While March 10 is National Day of Appreciation for Abortion Providers, it is very easy for us to forget why it is so important to thank the people who make the right to exercise our reproductive rights possible.
In late March in Wichita, Kansas, a six year investigation of late-term abortion provider George Tiller came to an end. According to Kansas law, late-term abortions are only permitted when two independent doctors agree that a woman would be irreparably harmed by giving birth. Prosecutors in the Tiller case were pushing the story that Tiller had an improper financial relationship with doctor Kristin Neuhaus, who was second opinion in 19 separate abortion cases.
Dr. Tiller’s clinic is one of just three clinics in the United States that perform late-term abortions, so it is no surprise why Dr. Tiller is such a controversial abortion provider. By simply doing his job as well as making it possible for a woman to have a late-term abortion, he has had despicable things done to his clinic as well as to him by radical anti-choicers.
In 1986, a bomb exploded on the roof of Dr. Tiller’s clinic, Women’s Health Care Services. In 1991, approximately 2,000 protesters were arrested outside during summer-long protests. In 2003, Dr. Tiller was shot in both arms by an anti-choice activist whole driving away from the clinic. To this day, protests continue outside of Dr. Tiller’s clinic almost daily. These occurrences are shocking, despicable, and something no person should have to go through in order to simply do their job and make a legal service available to women. This is not only a full-blown war against Dr. Tiller or against abortion, this is a war against women. Women undoubtedly have the ability to make an educated, informed decision of their own to seek a service that is fully legal and within their reproductive rights to seek. Because a group of people do not agree with the service being performed, does not give them permission to bomb his clinic, shoot him, or protest outside of his clinic most likely scaring away women who are already scared enough and really do not need someone shoving their moral convictions down their throats. When it comes to a woman’s right to do what she feels is best for herself, no one should stand in the way of her decision or question the decision she has already thought long and hard about. No woman goes into an abortion clinic with a smile on her face.
Luckily, after a six year investigation and four days of testimony, jurors took all of 45 minutes to acquit the doctor of charges that he performed 19 illegal late-term abortions in 2003. If convicted, Dr. Tiller could have spent up to one year in jail and would have had to pay a $2,500 fine on each of the 19 counts.
However, the fight for women’s rights is not over, and as we have seen time and time again, it will most likely continue until anti-choice forces can come to accept that fact that people who have a uterus also have a brain and are very capable of using that brain to make their own decisions. This trial is not the end of Dr. Tiller’s legal problems. The state Board of Healing Arts is investigating a complaint that is very similar to the accusations already made against the doctor during this trial.
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