Washington (AFP)

For seven years, Julie Burkhart worked with Dr. George Tiller until he was assassinated in 2009 in his Kansas church by an anti-abortion activist.

Since then, it has taken over. "I do not regret it: it was the right thing to do despite the price to pay," says the 53-year-old woman, who has suffered death threats, protests at her home and endless obstacles .

Like her, doctors, nurses and clinic directors struggle every day to maintain access to voluntary terminations of pregnancy in the center and south of the United States, where the religious right is well established.

While the fate of the right to abortion will be debated before the United States Supreme Court on Wednesday, several specialists refused to testify with AFP for fear of the consequences. Not Mrs. Burkhart.

However, since the assassination of Doctor Tiller, she too has been constantly thinking about her safety, that of her relatives and staff.

Already a victim of attempted murder in 1993, the gynecologist - one of the few who performed abortions late in pregnancy - wore a bullet-proof vest. "In his office, he often left him on an armchair, I had become a little insensitive to the risk," said Burkhart.

His death, from a bullet in the head shot by a man who claimed to want to "save fetuses", was a brutal call to reality.

Despite the condemnations, the attacks do not stop. Three more people were killed in 2015 in a Colorado Springs clinic, bringing the number of victims of anti-abortion violence to eleven since abortion was legalized across the United States in 1973.

During the period, there were also 26 attempted murders, 42 explosive attacks, more than 300 burglaries against clinics, according to the American abortion federation.

- "Russian mountains" -

After Dr. Tiller's death, his widow sold his clinic in Wichita, Kansas. "My God, I can't blame her," said Burkhart, who worked as a spokesperson and lobbyist for the doctor from 2001 to 2009. But "my first reaction was: she has to reopen."

"I was hoping someone would come forward, maybe a local doctor," she said, explaining that she wanted to throw in the towel. "In terms of emotion, I was like on a roller coaster."

As no one showed up, Ms. Burkhart felt invested "with responsibility". She then founded the organization Trust Women ("trust women"), took over the Wichita clinic, then opened another one, in neighboring Oklahoma.

In ten years, she has experienced death threats, intrusions into health centers, demonstrators to her home. At one point, the pressure was such that she had to resort to security guards to escort her teenage daughter to school.

This context frightens local doctors. Even those who worked with Dr. Tiller refused to return. Even today, Ms. Burkhart is forced to bring practitioners by plane from other states, often from the east or west coast, more progressive.

- "Isolated" -

Beyond security issues, doctors in the area fear being ostracized by their colleagues, losing their authorizations to operate in hospitals, being thanked by their associates, she explains.

Another obstacle: funding. The banks refused to make loans to reopen Dr. Tiller's clinic. "We had to raise funds from donors," said Burkhart.

As for the authorities, they pass laws after laws, officially to protect the health of patients. Concretely, these "obstacles" increased the number of clinics from 23 in the 1980s to four currently for all of Kansas (six in Oklahoma).

And then there is social pressure. "Sometimes you feel isolated, people don't always want to hang out with people like me," says Burkhart with a light sigh. "Sometimes I don't say everything about myself, it saves me from facing their judgments."

© 2020 AFP