In an attempt to warn patients that their physician could be the next Kermit Gosnell, a Chicago pro-life group staged a protest outside an Oak Park, Ill., medical office.
“Our goal is to convince Dr. Cheryl Chastine to drop her affiliation with South Wind Women's Center in Wichita, Kans., an abortion mill which was set up on the site of late-term abortionist George Tiller’s clinic,” said Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League.
He made the remarks May 22 as he arrived at Chastine’s medical office, Total Wellness, Inc., on South Oak Park Ave., in the upscale Chicago suburb.
South Wind was opened in April by Trust Women PAC, a political action committee founded in 2010 by former Tiller associate Julie Burkhart. Trust Women boasts on its website that it purchased the building in Wichita where Tiller operated. Tiller performed late-term abortions, and was shot to death May 31, 2009. “We are committed to opening a full service women’s clinic to serve the women of Kansas,” the groups says.
Trust Women states on its 2011 Form 990, which non-profits file with the IRS, that it is working to “reestablish access to full-spectrum reproductive healthcare in areas throughout the Midwest and the south that are currently under-served, beginning in Wichita, Kansas.”
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, a Catholic and a former presidential candidate, recently signed three new pro-life bills, including one that prohibts sex-selective abortions and establishes more clearly the health information that must be given to women prior to an abortion.
Trust Women apparently recruited Dr. Chastine, 31, a 2009 graduate of the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, to fly to Wichita on a weekly basis to perform abortions. South Wind reportedly has also engaged a Tucson, Ariz., doctor to do the same.
On its website, South Wind says it offers “medical abortions,” in which a patient ingests a drug to end a pregnancy, up to nine weeks gestation, and surgical abortions.
Tiller’s clinic had taken on significance for the pro-abortion movement, Scheidler said. “Abortion activists have been trying for years to reopen it because they see that as sort of a symbol of their triumph keeping abortion legal and so forth. We are determined to see that clinic not operate.”
He said Chastine is the “owner of record,” because Kansas law requires that clinics that provide medical services be owned by licensed providers. “If she withdraws,” Scheidler said, “this could be the end of that abortion clinic.”
Wednesday’s protest, which drew about 50 people as well as several counter-protestors, was the second one held by Scheidler’s group. “We’re out there to let her clients know [Chastine] is practicing abortion, to let the community know she’s involved in this shameful practice.”
Neither Chastine nor Burkhart responded to Aleteia’s phone calls by press time.
Scheidler has no idea why Chastine is involved, but said Trust Women had trouble finding an abortionist or any doctor willing to sign on. “There’s a growing desperation of the abortion cartel to maintain their abortionists ranks,” he said. “The number of abortionists has gone down year by year.”
Chastine, he added “seems like an unusual choice. If you Google her you’ll find that she’s associated with what’s called paleomedicine, which is an attempt to link medical care to a sort of holistic view of the body and what’s most natural…. Why would someone attempting to be natural and holistic want to be involved in the most unnatural use of medicine, to destroy life? Fertility is a marker of health. Any paleo point of view would have to view pregnancy as something to be cherished and nurtured, not something to be treated like a disease, excised like a tumor.”
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