The doctor who was supposed to be a replacement for the murdered Dr. George Tiller has backed out of providing abortion services in Wichita, Kansas, following a campaign of legal harassment, intimidation, and implied threats by the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue: Faced with lawsuit, Dr. Mila Means won’t offer abortions in Wichita after all.

In December, Aid for Women announced that it was training Dr. Mila Means on abortion procedures so she could finally bring those services back to Wichita this year. Since Dr. George Tiller was murdered in 2009, the largest city in Kansas has been without abortion services.

Now, after a lawsuit was filed to keep her from practicing,� Means says she won’t be providing abortions after all.

The suit, filed earlier this month by Foliage Development Inc., owner of the business park where Means wanted to rent space, claims that a clinic would create a public nuisance. Protesters had already begun picketing outside the building, and three park tenants allegedly threatened to leave the property if the protests continued. Foliage Development got a temporary order to keep Means from opening at all. …

Pro-life activist Troy Newman, who organized protests at the site with his group Operation Rescue, promised to keep picketing anywhere Means did abortions, in the hopes that businesses around her would threaten the landlord with leaving. He called Means’ relenting “a victory for the movement.”