after his death she vowed that women in kansas should continue to have access to the kinds of services that he provided and she has since really opened a clinic at the very same site where he worked and is called south wind women center and julie burckhardt is director there works now to provide to ensure that all women in kansas have access within driving distance of their home to abortion services she's also the founder of trust women pac and she is here with us tonight to talk about what it's like to continue ensuring that women have access to a full range of reproductive services in america's heartland thank you for joining us thank you for inviting is a pleasure when you tell our audience a little bit about george tiller it seems like so many people who work with him were inspired in one way or another by him and by his work yes yes indeed  tiller was a very solutions oriented person you know one thing that he always said to us his team as he called us he said solutions not problems he always wanted the bad news and then you know move on to the good news he also was deeply committed to ensuring that women you know were able to make decisions that were best for themselves he was very compassionate  very tolerant of you know where people were and had been in their lives and so that taught all of us a lot it seems like beyond solutions that there was something to the heart about the way that people t about him and his work and criticism incredibly committed to to his work and he did not come into this work voluntarily he i don't know if you know this but  was going to be a dermatologist and he was not going to go into the family medicine or providing women's health care but due to a family tragedy he moved back to wichita and he took over his dad's practice and women started coming to have in the practice and asking him if he was going to take care of them the way his dad had  and so that's what he also found out that his father had been providing abortions for women and then he got into later terminations of pregnancy because once again women asked him  if he could help them so so it was a matter of listening to people stories listening to women's stories and then a sense of doing what needs to be done correct which is also exactly it seems like the attitude that you've taken there's something here that needs to be done to help people out well he said that he was woman educated and that was absolutely true and so we're just you know working to follow in his footsteps in a way although not exactly but making sure that women have the health care they need and deserve what was it like for you when he got killed it was one of the most devastating days of my life was surreal i didn't think it was real at first i was in washington d c for a conference and i caught the first flight back to wichita it's just one of utter shock you know we always near the potential for violence but you really never think it's going to affect you well he had been shot before right in both arms as i understand it  he was leaving his clinic one night and he was driving his car through the gate and shelley shannon who shot him she was standing over there to the left of his car and  had she hit him so fortunately he survived that attack well yeah i mean that's also just a powerful story that someone would come through that and then decide that they  committed to their work and to their patients that that he would keep doing yes keep doing the work despite that threat and what he would say well what he told me and everybody else was that he he was back at work the next day so he was shot he went to the hospital but he went right back to work you know and i think after a while you know he came into this field reluctantly you know and  remained committed to it and it was a matter of principle must be frightening at times to do the work that you do carrying on his legacy yes it is and i try not to and i think i can speak for of the staff at the clinic as well we try not to focus on it too much you know otherwise i do think that it would paralyze us but yes di you know the threats are real we know that violence is real and that we have to take necessary precautions like we have and installed more security cameras on the building we make sure that we take different routes to and from work  variety of things to make sure that we stay safe but at southwest southwind women's center and women's in wichita yes where you have reopened an abortion clinic on the site of george tiller's former clinic yes and you know women you know coming in through those doors you know side of you know we were a blessing and that their lives have been blessed because we were present in wichita you know but and all of this is just to abortions for the most part is that where yes we go through fourteen weeks yes you know here and in washington state we have this is what we have abortion rights that have been that were approved by the voting public prior to roe v wade we have we have such access here that it's hard for us to even imagine somebody having to drive hundreds of miles in order to get services so so so what you are now where where your clients coming from well our clients come from that which tie area western kansas and the panhandle of oklahoma which you know if you're coming from the panhandle of oklahoma or western kansas and also i say northern kansas as well it's a hike you know to make it to us how far is it well it's about a three to four hour drive from western kansas so just to get to our clinic  that's what you have to drive so what were they without you there so without us women were going to denver or boulder or kansas city oklahoma city you're told for the most part  and that's burdensome if you're a woman who needs an abortion if you have a job you have to take time off from work to travel then if you have children maybe you have to find a daycare provider uska relative and that's more money out of a woman's pocket if you will and i don't know but think that it's the women who are in the worst situations who are going to have the hardest time doing that you know women who already has several children at home who can barely take care of those kids and who knows it and really wants to take good care of the children that she has and finds herself with an unexpected pregnancy right or woman who had who's just scraping you know kind of a long in a low wage job which is often less flexible you know like those great women who with middle income jobs professional jobs often actually have much better sick leave time and or general leave time than a woman who's in more dire circumstance exactly and just puts more hardship and a burden on women and i believe puts women in harm's way by allowing them to have the access that they need and you know women who  coming to the clinic you know some women are very concerned that they're going to be they don't want to be judged they feel like they're going to be charged they feel like they're bad people at times for having an abortion but what i told othe that i think abortion is ever it's a responsible decision that so it's responsible decision making coming into the clinic deciding if you want to have an abortion and you know it's about motherhood it's about the hopes and dreams that you have for the children who are present the hopes and dreams for children you might want to have down the road and for some women who might not want to have children but so it's one of responsibility and it should not be met with shame you know that planned parenthood here locally talks a lot about women's health and women being able to manage their own health but but i think it's much grew bigger than that right it's about what it's about our health it's about our lives and being able to decide what are we going to bring to the world around us to our communities to our country and and our dreams and it's about our families right how do we take care of being in partnership with another person perhaps how do we take care of our children and and give them the best shot possible in life and unless you can choose when and whether to have a child it's incredibly hard to do that right and i don't think women should be at the mercy of someone else's philosophy or ideology you know dr tiller always said abortion and i won't quote this exactly but abortion is not a medical matter it's not a cerebral matter abortion is a matter of the heart and until you know the heart of a woman nothing about abortion makes sense because a woman a woman goes she knows when she's pregnant whether she wants to have the baby and parent wants to have a baby you can give the baby for adoption i want to have an abortion you know those those decisions you have that comes to women so women are capable of making those decisions for themselves i thought it was fascinating that research that was incorporated into the freakonomics book did you read that about crime rates dropping after a you know kind of about fifteen years after abortion was legalized in different communities and it was kind of a rolling difference so they looked at that and said you know what's going on here is that women know whether they're in a good position to bring a child into the world or not you know kind of they know their own mental health they know the status of their relationship they know their financial status they know their support system they know and when they're forced to bring a child into the world under adverse circumstances women pay a price and children pay a price their price exactly and then of course the community pays a price exactly what are the stories that you hear that book bring somebody through you know past the protestors past kind of all of the layers of laws in kansas that prevent that make it hard for them to get there and that yet they come to you anyway right they do well you know we hear that you know women are in school there and they're not done with their education and would like to be at a more stable educational and financial point in their lives some women you know come in and say that they have enough children and they didn't plan to have any more it the bottom line is it's all about a better life for themselves and for their families and that's what we're there to do well and what's interesting is it's also something it's about taking responsibility when you said when you say  woman comes in she wants to a young woman wants to finish her education that she has some image of what it takes in terms of financial resources to raise a child and it's kind of ironic i think that we have the political right talking so much about responsibility individual responsibility and and yet it sounds like that's exactly what you're clear patients are talking about well exactly and i think you know women anywhere in america who seek abortion care are you know it's a response it's it's a responsible decision and you know the right wing paints women who have abortions as these kind crazies out of control women who are going to be harmed in the end you know so therefore the state has to step in and take care of them but but women women do know best and you know what you have in kansas is you have  politicians who are trying to make it more and more difficult it sounds like for women to take responsibility for themselves their future and their families to you know what are some of the more onerous restrictions that you're up against well we do have a twenty four hour waiting period so women have to sign a twenty four hour informed consent we have to have those women from oklahoma or they having to come to wichita sign it and then wait twelve hours we're able well we're able to thanks to technology we can email it fax it we can send it in the mail but it has to be signed dated and time the time has to be noted on it as well and if it's not twenty four hour four hours in advance of the appointment we cannot see women so and that can be quite a hardship for a woman say his travel traveled from  you know an hour and a half to three hours away that that's a hardship so twenty four hour waiting period dual personal consent consent i wrecked so i never heard about that until you mentioned it earlier one of the few states and i would have to look at a marker report to see which other states have it but we're one of the very few states in the nation so the parents along with the minor have to go before a perhaps having had was sex she was she had to have perhaps even you know kind of wish that her contraception had been better or she'd been kind of been kind of more on top of it or perhaps having had an wanted sex and this is  teenager right and god forbid we should kind of delve into their private lives on any topic and then where they have to choose to go with two parents parent to a notary to a notary who may be a fundamentalist for all she knows yeah hopefully you're getting a notary who will wri went so far we haven't had any we haven't had any of the parents or minors tell us notaries wouldn't sign it but they have to go and now if you cannot get a second parent if they're divorced or if the parents absent you have to provide the custodial parent has to provide the latest tax return statement to show that they do have custody and are claiming the minor on their taxes or they have to provide the divorce decree and those holding it together notice it having to dig out divorce decree having to having to deal with perhaps hostile kind of ex spouse at a teenager having to come out to both of her parents bypass and so far we've had one minor who has gone through the judicial bypass process so there is that and fortunately we do have some friendly john judges who will hear daughter you know i've got two teenage daughters going in front of a judge with me so scary it is incredibly so we work with friendly attorneys in town are there friendly attorneys who provide these services pro bono to the minor and just do their best to walk them through the process but it's invasive it's scary it's it's a lot for a teenager to handle so it seems like almost  there they're wanting to ensure that if kind of just you know they say abortion is traumatic and they are wanting to ensure that it is right that process in and of itself is traumatic yes yes and then we have mandatory ultrasound so whether it's medically needed or not correct and you know and that's part of you know that's been part of abortion care forever but there's no need to mandated and put it into statute  so the patient the doctor then have to sign a form that says yes the doctor has off for the patient to look at the ultrasound it's at and it's and or fetal heartbeat but we only offer sound at our clinic so you're making me so glad to live in washington state seriously i mean you know the reason we have we have an absolute right to privacy here for girls who are age thirteen and up both mental health care and for reproductive health care and the reason is that that teenagers have a hard enough time making good decisions for themselves and that there and that kids the kids who are least likely to talk to their parents or kids who probably shouldn't be talking to their parents right i mean the fact where there is abuse or neglect or substance abuse in the family you know we have these middle class kind of families look at the laws and say well i would certainly want my daughter to come to me well you know if you have nurtured that relationship right daughter most likely will come to you right yeah and i have a twelve year old daughter as well and i and i would hope that she would come to me but you can't force conversations you can't force communication so i would rather have a safe place where a teen could go than you know pushing teenagers into a corner and up against a wall that's what it feels like these laws do is it really corners i think about about my niece who has two mentally ill parents right and what would it be like for her to have to you know to have to bring them into a conversation both of them and to have to kind of think about whether she's going to somehow destabilize one of them by by engaging them in her own crisis i mean mercifully you know that that isn't a situation that's come up came into office we were able to for the past decade before you came into office you know keep a lot of these laws at bay because we had governors who were committed more committed to women's rights well and in fact kansas actually people think now of kansas this is kind of crazy place no offense but can't sexually has a history of respecting individual rights and women's rights yes yes and so i'm hoping that the tide will well eventually turn for us hopefully within the next decade how does your family react to the fact that you are doing this kind of scary work right that you now have southwind women center in the same clinic space that dr george tiller had and he you know with this history of dr tiller being murdered in this church by an anti choice extremist that's a scary thing yeah it's scary my family you know they're they're really pretty good you know they have their emotions sort of ebb and flow they're supportive of the work that do no one in my family ever asked me to quit what i'm doing and i think they know that wow that's not going anywhere but they're supportive i think they worry about me maybe a little bit more than they let on but the fact that you're doing it is an incredible inspiration to people around us and to you know i think here in washington state when i hear other people talk about the work you're doing in kansas part of what they say is it's just a total wake up call it's a reminder of first of all how good we have it here that we do have a very very strong support for women's reproductive health and rights and the fact that we have that means that actually probably have less abortion need here because we are fighting the fight not about abortion access but we're fighting this fight about contraceptive access about like now we're talking about how do we get top t acting contraceptives right to like like i use these in implants to women who really need them so that we don't we can even have even less abortions need right and we're talking about we're fighting the battle around protecting the right of teenagers to have accurate about their bodies so i we look at you and then we are the courageous frontline of you know kind of holding off the war on women well and that was you know well first off you know we wanted to of course provide care to women in the region you know secondly we we do want to be this beacon of hope that yes this is a challenging field we have hostile territory but we can do it and women deserve to have access they deserve to have reproductive health care services no matter where they live and that we can't give up on that i think that's what's so inspiring that there you are in the heartland right in the middle of the of of the battles and the kind of in the very clinic that belong to an abortion provider who was murdered and you are providing care five days a week to women who need it right we just feel so fortunate to be in his old facility to to be providing care to women it just feels great your patients must feel so fortunate to  you hear that number that yes what are they saying well they they say that we you know they're glad that there's a clinic that's back in wichita you know they feel blessed that some patients have said mentioned earlier that you have clergy working with you is what we do we do we have about six to seven clergy members who are working with us will provide you know counseling resources to women i got the protesters at the gate and yet what i'm also hearing is that you have a tremendous community of support around you yeah i've really heard more positive  remarks from the community at large than negative people have come up to us in the grocery store or the post office in a variety of places you know saying you know thank you for working on this thank you for reopening i feel like we've received positive press so you know we have protesters out of our gate who unfortunately harass hope that and we've heard so far that you know when women come in they they feel safe they feel protected they feel accepted well julie i want to thank you i mean as a woman who has needed an abortion and i absolutely appreciate what a blessing it is to be able to wait to start healthy pregnancy when you're ready to bring a child into the world and welcome that child with open arms and so i think what you are doing with your courageous reopening of the south wind women's center is just a gift to the women of wichita it's also a gift to women across the country who look at you and who say if it can happen in kansas we can make it happen here yes and i firmly believe that th is is a long uphill battle but i think this is one one piece of the puzzle you know one piece of the solution to make sure that all women have access to reproductive health care thank you for joining us on more lalage there today it's been a pleasure to have you here this was on your vacation in seattle and we're putting you to work that's well i love this