Longtime Abortion-Rights Advocate Susan Hill Dies

February 9, 2010 - Susan Hill, a nationally known women's rights advocate and owner of several abortion clinics, died Jan. 30 at age 61, McClatchy/Los Angeles Times reports. Hill, who had breast cancer, focused on establishing clinics in rural areas where women otherwise would not have access to abortion services. According to McClatchy/Times, Hill "opened more clinics than anyone else in the United States, sometimes drawing 1,000 protesters at a time."

Hill filed lawsuits against protesters 34 times for blocking clinics and preventing women from entering. Ann Rose, a longtime friend of Hill's, said Hill refused to wear a bulletproof vest, despite threats on her life. "She was not going to let them control her life," Rose said, adding, "She wasn't going to be intimidated." Dan Hill, Susan Hill's brother, said, "She's probably the toughest person I ever knew," adding, "People really wanted to kill her, and she never flinched." A doctor at one of Hill's clinics, David Gunn, was shot and killed in 1993 by an antiabortion protester, who is now serving a life sentence.

Hill, who had a degree in social work, opened a clinic outside Miami, Fla., one week after the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. She recalled in a 2007 interview that a girl with cerebral palsy came to the clinic that day after becoming pregnant by an abusive uncle. The girl "was too stricken and disabled to speak about her problem, but her mother had driven her 250 miles that morning to fix it," according to McClatchy/Times. Hill said women's stories motivated her to continue her work in the face of threats. "If people knew the stories, they wouldn't be so vicious," she said (Friedman, McClatchy/Los Angeles Times, 2/8).