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Fall 2009

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STEVE LISS/TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES national I REPORTS Battleground Nebraska Anti-abortion extremists set their sights north of Wichita S 12 | FALL 2009 HORTLY AFTER PIONEERING KANSAS ABORTION PROVIDER DR. GEORGE TILLER WAS murdered on May 31 and his Wichita clinic subsequently closed, other abortion physicians bravely stepped into the breach. Among the most public was Nebraska-based Dr. LeRoy Carhart, who for 11 years had traveled to Wichita monthly to perform late abortions at Tiller’s clinic. Carhart quickly announced he would continue Tiller’s work either at his Nebraska clinic in Bellevue or in Kansas. And just as quickly, anti-abortion forces switched their campaign against Tiller to focus on Carhart. In an eerie similarity to Tiller’s struggle to defend himself against relentless legal at- tacks by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, Nebraska’s attorney general Jon Brun- ing spoke about Carhart in a disparaging manner that signaled possible future legal action. In a June 11 interview with Omaha’sKETV, Bruning said of Carhart, “I’m disgusted and I’m saddened, and I hate it that he’s here in Nebraska and I hate it that he’s in America. I mean, this guy is one sick individual.” Shortly after that opening salvo, Troy Newman, head of the Wichita-based Operation Rescue—which had moved to Kansas from Southern California in 2002 to focus on closing Tiller’s clinic—announced a “Keep It Closed” campaign to prevent Carhart from opening a late-abortion clinic. This campaign is a coalition effort by Operation Rescue along with Ne- braska’s Rescue the Heartland, which has been publicly harassing Carhart and his staff for years, and Nebraskans United for Life. www.feminist.org

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