Julie Burkhart, Founder and President of Wellspring Health Access and co-owner of Hope Clinic in both Granite City and Chicago, Illinois.

Ms. Burkhart founded Trust Women in the wake of Dr. George Tiller’s assassination and was at the helm as its CEO for 12 years. Under her leadership, she has established four abortion clinics from the ground up, which are located in Kansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Illinois, as well as overseeing the acquisition of two reproductive health care clinics, which are located in Illinois and Washington State. She is currently working on another startup in Colorado.

Ms. Burkhart was honored by Time Magazine as one of the Most Influential People of the Year in the Pioneer category and in the Time100 Health Leader category.

Beginning in 2001, she worked side by side with Dr. George Tiller. It was there that she led the community response against the anti-choice organizations that were attempting to “finish the job” and shut down Women’s Health Care Services, Inc., Dr. Tiller’s clinic, during the 2001 Summer of Mercy Renewal. Ms. Burkhart was also the spokesperson for his clinic.

In 2002, Dr. Tiller created ProKanDo, which would become the largest political action committee in Kansas under Ms. Burkhart’s leadership. For seven years, she built and directed the organization, which engaged in legislative and political work on behalf of physicians and constituents advocating for reproductive rights. Ms. Burkhart now continues Dr. Tiller’s vision for abortion access through Wellspring Health Access and Hope Clinics.

Before working for Dr. Tiller, Ms. Burkhart was at ground zero during the infamous Summer of Mercy in 1991. She worked at the Wichita Women’s Center, which Operation Rescue, the Lambs of Christ and other anti-choice zealots heavily targeted. Driven by a commitment to political justice, she went on to manage several political campaigns in Washington State and work for the Washington State Democratic Party and the Washington Senate Democratic Campaign Committee.

Ms. Burkhart holds a bachelor’s degree from Seattle Pacific University and a master’s degree from Wichita State University, both in political science with an emphasis on African studies. She also completed her post-baccalaureate pre-medicine studies at the University of Washington and Seattle University.

Ms. Burkhart is a frequent speaker and commentator on abortion rights. Recently, she was featured in the New York Times, which noted that she is the only person who opened an abortion clinic in a state that banned abortion post-Roe. She has appeared on the PBS NewsHour, NPR, Ali Velshi, Rachel Maddow, MSNBC Live, the Alan Colmes Radio Show, Democracy Now, The Young Turks and various local news and radio programs. She has also had opinion pieces appear in a variety of newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, CNN and the Kansas City Star. She has been quoted and interviewed by national press, including the New York Times, Bloomberg, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, MORE Magazine, Mother Jones, ThinkProgress, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, the Huffington Post, Pacific Standard Magazine and international media such as Annabelle in Switzerland and ARD in Germany. She has been interviewed in extensive pieces by MSNBC and for various documentaries.