Pro-Life Group's Campaign Will Focus on Late-Term Abortion Practitioner Tiller

From http://lifenews.com/state3425.html

Pro-Life Group's Campaign Will Focus on Late-Term Abortion Practitioner Tiller

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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 1, 2008



Wichita, KS (LifeNews.com) -- A pro-life group is starting a national campaign to get pro-life advocates to Kansas to help put more focus on George Tiller. The late-term abortion practitioner will face a trial early next year on charges he did illegal abortions and Operation Rescue hopes to put more pressure on him.

The pro-life group plans a series of events in association with the hearings and court dates leading up to the March 2009 trial.

The campaign, which will be known as A Call For Justice, will feature prayer vigils and public relations campaigns and hopefully hundreds of pro-life people from around the country.

"We are putting out a national call for pro-lifers to come to Wichita, especially during the November 17 hearing later this year and the trial, which is set to begin on March 16 of next year," Operation Rescue president Troy Newman told LifeNews.com.

"As Christians, we believe in the power of prayer and in the Biblical mandate to expose the sinful act of abortion. We plan to do both as court proceedings against Tiller be," he said.

"We intend to keep attention focused on these proceedings to keep the system honest to unsure that justice will be done. There has been far too much political interference and obstruction of other efforts to hold Tiller accountable for crimes we know he has committed to allow the same kind of corruption to derail this prosecution," he explained.

"Everyone involved in this case needs to know that the eyes of the nation are on them," he said.

Earlier this week, a local judge ruled against a request from Tiller's attorneys to declare Kansas' ban on most late-term abortions unconstitutional. District Court Judge Clark Owens determined that the post-viability abortion ban is legitimate. http://www.lifenews.com/state3416.html

Judge Owens said the law "survives all of the constitutional challenges" Tiller's lawyers presented.

As a result, the Tiller motion to dismiss the 19 charges filed against him by the state attorney general was denied.

Former attorney general Paul Morrison filed the charges against Tiller, saying he violated state law requiring a second physician to sign off on the validity of the late-term abortions.

Tiller allegedly has violated the component of the state’s late-term abortion law requiring the abortion practitioner not to have a relationship with the second physician. He got abortion practitioner Ann Kristin Neuhaus, with whom he is a financial partner, to sign off on the disputed late-term abortions.

The second physician is supposed to validate whether the mother will face "substantial and irreversible" harm to "a major bodily function" without the abortion -- the lone times when a late-term abortion can be done legally.

Now, Tiller will face a trial on the charges and, if he's convicted, could face as much as 19 years in prison with one year for each guilty conviction.