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Tennessee-border abortion clinic owner: ‘I don’t need a welcome mat’

AP Photo by Rogelio V. Solis / Diane Derzis, owner of the former Jackson Women's Health Organization clinic in Jackson, Miss., speaks June 24 to reporters following the clinic's news conference on its reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Derzis now owns a clinic in Bristol, Va., just across the Tennessee state border.
AP Photo by Rogelio V. Solis / Diane Derzis, owner of the former Jackson Women's Health Organization clinic in Jackson, Miss., speaks June 24 to reporters following the clinic's news conference on its reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Derzis now owns a clinic in Bristol, Va., just across the Tennessee state border. AP Photo by Rogelio V. Solis / Diane Derzis, owner of the former Jackson Women's Health Organization clinic in Jackson, Miss., speaks June 24 to reporters following the clinic's news conference on its reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. Derzis now owns a clinic in Bristol, Va., just across the Tennessee state border.

By Anita Wadhwani / Tennessee Lookout 5 min read

A looming local ordinance banning abortion clinics, daily protesters and a lawsuit by her landlord do not faze Diane Derzis, owner of the newly established Bristol Women’s Health clinic about a mile across the Tennessee border in Virginia.

Since it opened in July, Derzis’ abortion clinic has also drawn condemnation from the local Catholic Diocese and evangelical Christian groups — as well as hand-wringing from some in the area business community, concerned that the city, long-touted for its central location at the convergence of three state borders, will now be viewed as an abortion destination.

Derzis said none of that concerns her.

“I don’t need a welcome mat from anyone in this city. We pay taxes. They take them,” she said.

Derzis, 68, has spent a lifetime working to provide abortion access in clinics across the South, a vocation that took root when she was a 20-year-old married woman who sought out her own abortion. She owns three other abortion clinics in Columbus, Georgia; Las Cruces, New Mexico; and Richmond, Virginia.