George Tiller

George Tiller (b. 1941) is a physician in Wichita, Kansas in the United States. He is the medical director of an abortion clinic in Wichita, Women's Health Care Services, which specializes in the provision of late-term procedures.

Tiller studied at the University of Kansas School of Medicine from 1963 to 1967. Shortly thereafter, he held a medical internship with United States Navy, and served as flight surgeon in Oakland, California in 1969 and 1970.

The Women's Health Care Services clinic and its presiding doctor are the subject of activism by members of the pro-life movement. In particular, Troy Newman and Operation Rescue have made it their goal to see the clinic closed. Tiller has also been the target of anti-abortion violence. On August 19, 1993, he was shot in both arms outside of the Wichita clinic by Rachelle Shannon of Grants Pass, Oregon, who received an 11-year prison sentence for the crime.

The clinic itself is unusual in that it offers funerary services to it patients. Some of these include photographs, footprinting and handprinting, Baptism, cremation, arrangement for burial in or out of state, and arrangement for amniocentesis and/or autopsy.

Christin Gilbert
Christin Gilbert, a 19-year-old woman with Down Syndrome from Keller, Texas, died in January 2005 after a multi-day abortion procedure performed at Tiller's facility, though reports conflict as to whether the abortion was performed by Tiller himself or by LeRoy Carhart. Gilbert had been 28 weeks pregnant. The autopsy stated that Gilbert died of sepsis following the abortion. Tiller was cleared of any wrongdoing by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts. After a petition from Operation Rescue, a grand jury was convened to probe the death, which resulted in Tiller being cleared of all charges.

The O'Reilly Factor controversy
On Friday 3rd November 2006, Bill O'Reilly featured an exclusive segment on his show, The O'Reilly Factor, saying that he has an "inside source" with official clinic documentation indicating that George Tiller performs late-term abortions to alleviate "temporary depression" in the pregnant woman. According to reporting data provided to the Kansas Board of Healing Arts for the year 1998, all of the post-viable "partial-birth" abortion procedures performed in Kansas during that year were performed because "the attending physician believe[d] that continuing the pregnancy [would] constitute a substantial and irreversible impairment of the patient's mental function." Tiller responded to O'Reilly's statements by demanding an investigation into the "inside source" through which the information was leaked, suggesting that Phill Kline, then the Kansas Attorney General, was responsible. Kline denied the charge.