Kansas has avoided becoming the first state in the US without an abortion provider by granting an abortion provider a licence to continue performing abortions under new regulations being challenged in federal court.

Fifty-one-year-old Scott Roeder has been convicted of the murder of one of the only doctors in the US who offered late-term abortions.

A clinic run by murdered late-term abortion doctor George Tiller will shut forever, his family said.

US president Barack Obama said today he was shocked and outraged at the murder of a top doctor who performed late-term abortions.