In May 2022, about a month before Julie Burkhart and her team planned to open Wyoming’s only full-service abortion clinic, an arsonist set fire to the building. But that didn’t stop Burkhart, who has run abortion clinics in several states for years. She and other advocates challenged the state’s near-total abortion ban and started rebuilding. In April 2023, Wellspring Health Access finally opened, and the next year, a judge sided with Wellspring, declaring Wyoming’s ban unconstitutional.
Then, in February, the state governor signed a bill requiring abortion clinics to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers—a policy that advocates say is more than what is needed for patient safety and intended to effectively prevent clinics from operating. Wellspring was forced to halt abortion services while it challenged the new law in court. In April, a judge ruled that Wellspring can resume providing abortions while the legal battle continues.
“Being the state’s only [full-service] clinic makes us a target,” Burkhart says. “Abortion access is punted around like a political football, and it’s on the backs of the women and the people who need abortion care. It has real consequences on people’s lives.”
Burkhart has faced death threats and legal challenges. She’s held fast, defending abortion in rural and conservative parts of the country. She also co-owns Hope Clinic in Illinois, which saw a 700% increase in out-of-state patients after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Abortion is legal in Illinois, but many states nearby have banned or restricted it since the Court’s ruling, and most of Hope Clinic’s patients travel from other states, Burkhart says.
“I come from an agricultural family in northern Oklahoma; I know what it’s like to be in…places that are more marginalized,” Burkhart says. That background is the source of her “very deep commitment” to ensuring that all forms of health care, including abortion, are available—“no matter where you’re from in this country, no matter your socioeconomic situation.”
“If we’re going to deny it in one state or one community,” Burkhart says, “then we are fooling ourselves about freedom in this country.”