in 1986 his clinic was bombed. tiller hung a sign outside the bomb out building hell no, we won t go. he reopened the next day at a secret location. we have had a major $100,000 bombing here in our organization, and one day later we re in business. in 1991 the radical anti-abortion group, operation rescue, called on thousands of anti-abortion activists from across the country to converge on wichita to physically shutdown george tiller s clinic. wichita is not used to guerilla tacks but it s learning. harassing patients, using children as human shields. eventually the radical fringe of the anti-abortion movement turned to a chilling new tactic to isolate and target doctors. wanted posters that cast abortion doctors as murderers and gave anyone who might wish
just like julie is doing they fly doctors in from other states. and that makes those clinics even more vulnerable to getting shutdown by the crettive and aggressive anti-abortion forces. there s a whole class of laws known as trap laws, t-r-a-p regulations designed for one purpose, to shutdown portion clinic because clinics aren t supposed to be able to comply with these requirements. one of the more infashioned trap laws over the past several years is a rule of requiring abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital wherever they re practice. there s no medical reason for this. abortion is relatively safe low risk procedure that in most cases can be done in a doctors office. complications that require hospitalization are very rare, and even in those very rare cases the doctor who performs
guard had a gun. i thought i wonder why. these days mr. swinny still has his gun. he mans the lobby at the clinic. he signs in the patients. he keeps an eye on the protesters making sure they don t get too close. there are fewer protesters than there were in the tiller days but they can still get aggressive sometimes. they standby the parking lot, drive by the entrance back and forth, back and forth. the threat they pose still feels like a very live one because it s hard to tell who s just a guy with a sign and who could be the next scott roader. carl says he keeps an eye out for what he calls the problem people. in kansas today a woman who shot a doctor who performs abortions was sentenced to 11 years in prison. she was convicted in march in the attack on dr. george tiller. she was to prison for trying
into the church george tiller attended, he walked in on a sunday morning, he held up a gun to tiller s head and he executed him at point-blank range. according to the killer, scott roader, he d been thinking about killing george tiller for years. but it was the result of that trial, george tiller s acquittal of all those misdemeanor charges that motivated him to actually go through with it, to actually do it. it seemed like that was the last attempt by the state of kansas to find if there was anything at all going on illegally in george tiller s clinic. and it seemed as though that was the last step and now he was acquitted. found not guilty. did you decide it was incumbent upon you to do something? there was nothing being done, and the legal process had been exhausted, and these babies were dying every day. and i felt that if someone did
scott roader shot him in the head. nine days later tiller s family announced they would not reopen the clinic. dr. tiller was the city s only abortion provider so his death ended abortion access in wichita, and that had a real practical and immediate effect on all the women who had come to rely on tiller and on this particular clinic for this kind of care. anti-abortion forces in wichita were adamant about keeping the clinic closed in the wake of tiller s murder, keeping wichita abortion-free. late in 2010 more than a year after tiller s death and more than a year after the clinic had closed the associated press reported two doctors in kansas were training to become abortion providers. those doctors names were leaked to the ap by the anti-abortion movement and the ap decided to print their names. and the threats and intimidation and harassment began immediately. one of those two doctors was dr.