Operation Rescue smears doctor who wants to open abortion clinic in Kansas

In about six days, the number of operating abortion clinics in Kansas might shrink from three to zero, due to a recently passed law (PDF) relating to the licensure of abortion clinics. But just as anti-abortion-rights groups have been rejoicing, a family physician from Wichita is moving forward with her plans to try to open an abortion clinic in Wichita — possibly within the next 12 t0 18 months.

On Thursday, the Wichita Eagle ran a cover story about Dr. Mila Means, 54, who told the paper she plans to form a nonprofit andt raise around $1 million to open a clinic that will provide “early-term abortions.”

Before noon, Wichita-based anti-abortion-rights group Operation Rescue posted an article titled “Bizarre Admissions From Abortionist Means Reveal Lack of Ethics and Morality.”

The Wichita Eagle story begins:

Dr. Mila Means was raised in a family that considered abortion an accepted, reasonable idea. Her schoolteacher parents, social activists in the 1960s, instilled that attitude early in her life. … That upbringing, and what she calls a non-mainstream approach to her medical practice and her personal life, guided the decision she made about a year ago to try to perform abortions in a city that hasn’t had an abortion clinic since physician George Tiller was murdered by Scott Roeder in May 2009.

The Operation Rescue story digs into Means’ quotes about her financial debt and business skills.

“It looks like Means is trying to used a non-profit corporation as a tax dodge,” says Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Her financial turmoil and history of a failed practice likely precludes her from obtaining business capital through the traditional, legal means. With her admitted history of financial mismanagement coupled with her dubious scheme to raise money, donors seriously risk throwing their money away by giving to her.”

About the new abortion-clinic regulations adopted in Kansas, Means is quoted in theEagle as saying:

“There are so many redundancies that are not important for the woman’s safety that are built into this bill specifically to deny access, and that really makes me angry. That probably reinforced my decision to keep working in this direction.”

OR’s response on its web site:

Means also has a problem with authority, according to her interview. She has refused to meet quotas imposed on her by employers and denounces what she calls “cookie-cutter protocol.” This raises questions about her ability to comply with new state safety laws that she says angers her and contain “many redundancies that are not important.” The new law “probably reinforced my decision to keep working in this direction,” she said.

Newman calls Means “a danger to the public,” then digs into her personal life, on display in a section sub-headed “Her private life is unconventional.” The picture the Eagle paints of Means is as follows: She has no children and lives with her boyfriend. In 2003, she married a gay man because he was a close friend with bipolar depression and needed health insurance; they are still married, but the husband does not live with Means but with another gay man. Also, she continued to treat her husband and provide treatment for his mother and grandmother after they married, which led to discipline from the Kansas Board of Healing Arts in 2007.

OR does not approve of Means’ marriage or her cohabitation with her boyfriend:

When taken in total, Means’ checkered background and history of bucking authority and the law raises deep concerns about her moral center and ability to conduct herself in keeping with legal and ethical standards.

In the Wichita Eagle story, Newman said: “We’re going to do everything legally and morally within our power to keep her from opening an abortion clinic in this city. And she cannot underestimate our resolve.”

Already, Newman has claimed credit for shutting down her efforts to find a clinic so far and has estimated that she has less than a 30 percent chance of ever opening a clinic — on account of the new abortion legislation and Operation Rescue’s actions, which include the article in published attacking Means’ ethics and morality.

As The Florida Independent recently reported, Operation Rescue has started a research project to identify every abortion provider in the country. The group is looking for names of providers, which clinics they work at, as well as all documentation “concerning board discipline, criminal history, malpractice cases, verifiable botched abortions and other similar information.” Once all the information is compiled, the information will go up on Operation Rescue’s website.

The research project and next month’s “Summer of Mercy 2.0” suggest Operation Rescue shift in priorities from the 2011 legislative session to trying to prosecute abortion-providers.