They called it the “Summer of Mercy.”
In July and August of 1991, abortion protesters swarmed clinics in Wichita as part of Operation Rescue’s national campaign to shut down the “baby-killing industry” in Kansas — a state that at the time had no restrictions on the procedure. Their main target among the city’s three clinics: George Tiller, one of a handful of doctors in the country who performed late-term abortions.
In the blistering heat, throngs of abortion foes from across the country blocked the clinic gates by day and packed revival-style rallies in a downtown hotel at night, many of them fresh from being arrested.
