Church Speaks Up Against New Abortion Biz Opening Next Door: “Killing Babies is a Crime”
News is spreading across Oklahoma City that a notorious late-term abortion business plans to open a new office there this summer, and many residents are upset.
Julie Burkhart is behind the new abortion facility. The businesswoman has a shady reputation, having once run an abortion clinic for late-term abortionist George Tiller. She currently owns and runs an abortion business in Wichita, Kansas.
Until recently, many local residents were not aware that the facility Burkhart is renovating will do abortions, Oklahoma News 9 reports. The facility is just down the corner from a church, the Liberty Worship Center (pictured); and it is located in a former eye doctor’s office, according to the report.
Local Pastor Fernando Esquibel was upset to learn the news and said he wants to do something to stop abortions from happening in Oklahoma City. Burkhart will be the first to open an abortion center in the area in decades, according to the report.
“I think abortion is a crime,” Esquibel told the news station. “It’s killing babies, and I don’t think it’s a good idea. I believe in life, not death.”
According to the local reports, nearby businesses and residents also are upset by the news. Yasmine Castillo, who has two children and lives in the neighborhood, said she also would take a stand against abortion in her community.
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“I’m not really with abortion … and I think everybody is pretty much grown up to take all the necessary needs to have a baby, and if you do there has to be consequences if you decide to kill a baby,” she said.
Some pro-lifers already have been protesting outside the building, though it is not open yet. A local business also is facing some backlash for doing work on the building, KOKO News 5 reports.
Yarbrough & Sons, LLC is a family-owned heating and air conditioning company that contracted with Burkhart, not knowing what her intentions were. The owners told KOKO that they were told the work was for a health care facility. Only after pro-lifers began sending messages to the company did they learn that it was an abortion facility, the owners said.
Some accused the company of supporting abortion; however, the owners said they are pro-life, according to the report. The company said it has stopped working on the abortion facility; but, because it has a legally binding contract to do the work, it has had to seek legal help.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Burkhart boasted that her new abortion clinic will do abortions later than any other facility in Oklahoma. In a February interview, she said they will do abortions up to 24 weeks, LifeNews reported.
She complained to the liberal magazine that she has been facing a lot of obstacles. She said many Oklahoma businesses did not want to work with her because of the nature of her business, making her feel “ostracized.” She also said the state Department of Health made it difficult to get an abortion clinic license.
“I think it was a mixture of people not understanding or knowing exactly what to do — because no provider of abortion had wanted to open a clinic since the Seventies — and I think we had some obstructionists in the Department of Health who thought maybe we would just go away,” Burkhart said.
Despite Rolling Stone’s glowing report, Burkhart and her abortion facility have poor reputations for patient care and safety. Cheryl Sullenger, a leader of Operation Rescue, described Burkhart this way:
Burkhart is a militant pro-abortion activist who once worked for the notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller as head of his now-defunct political action committee. During that time, Burkhart was paid by Tiller to lobby against common sense laws that provided late-term abortion limits, as well as safety standards and accountability for abortion clinics. She also opposed efforts by [Kansas] Attorney General Phil Kline to investigate the non-reporting of child sex abuse at Kansas abortion clinics.
In December, pro-lifers uncovered even more evidence of shady goings on.
A 911 call from November revealed a desperate mother saying that her teenage daughter was being forced to have an abortion at Burkhart’s Wichita facility, LifeNews reported. According to police, the mother called 911 after receiving text messages from the teen saying that her estranged father was holding her at the abortion facility against her will. Police arrived at the scene but Burkhart did not cooperate well with the police, according to reports. She refused to say whether the teen was inside her facility or speak to police while being recorded, according to the report. Her obstruction prevented the police from checking on the teen’s welfare.
Last July, pro-lifers also uncovered evidence that a woman had been severely injured in a botched abortion at her Wichita facility. According to 911 audio from the incident, Burkhart initially told an ambulance crew not to rush there or turn its lights on for the woman, LifeNews reported.
Burkhart also appears to be employing an abortionist with a sordid history. Sullenger reported that Wichita doctor Leslie E.F. Page was once disciplined by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for “professional incompetency.” In February 2015, Operation Rescue obtained documents showing Page had secretly signed on to work for Burkhart as an abortionist.
