Unusual closure comes in wake of 9th employee to quit in “Year of Rebuke”
Wichita, Kansas – Oct 03, 2004 George Tiller’s late-term abortion mill, Women’s Health Care Services in Wichita, Kansas, was closed on October 3, 2004, for the 21st consecutive Saturday, in spite of advertising that indicated that the clinic would be open for first trimester abortions that day. This closure follows on the heals of the departure of another abortion nurse in September, the ninth Tiller employee to leave WHCS since Operation Rescue implemented its “Year of Rebuke” Campaign in January.
Rescuers posted themselves at the mill as early as 5:45 AM to offer help to women who were to have arrived for abortions, only to find the gate locked and the parking lot empty. Pro-lifers maintained a presence throughout the morning praying and monitoring the clinic in the event it opened later than scheduled. It did not.
“This has never happened before,” noted Brad Bennett, a veteran pro-lifer that has ministered at Tiller’s mill for decades. Tiller is well known for keeping strictly to his scheduled appointment times.
According to his web site, “Women’s Health Care Services, PA, is staffed by medical and administrative personnel Tuesday through Saturday. .The clinic is closed approximately one Saturday a month, Sundays, and on major holidays.” However, WHCS has been closed every Saturday – traditionally one of his busiest and most lucrative first trimester killing days – since May 8.
Since the initiation of the “Year of the Rebuke,” Tiller has lost 9 employees, the most recent a 51-year old abortion nurse from nearby Andover, Kansas, who was employed at WHCS less than a month. In an apparent effort to compensate for the current personnel upheaval at his mill, Tiller has adapted his killing schedule to a more employee-friendly one, all but eliminating his weekend abortion days.
As a result, abortion numbers are down dramatically. Since the beginning of the “Year of Rebuke,” Tiller’s abortion business has dropped by over twenty percent.*
“The fact that Tiller cannot keep employees and that the number of children he is killing is down is evidence that our tactics are working,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “We are only nine months into the ‘Year of Rebuke’ and already Tiller has lost nine employees, including two clinic managers and several hard-to-replace abortion nurses. He has essentially stopped aborting on weekends, most likely in an effort to appease those workers who are left. Who wants to work in an environment that trades in human misery for 40 hours per week? We pray that every employee of Tiller’s will repent and leave the high-stress killing industry for a better life elsewhere.”
