Iconic Late Abortion Doctor Retires. Who Will Fill the Gap?

by annrose

Community

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Tuesday, May. 13, 2025 Tuesday, May. 13, 2025 at 12:20:02pm PDT

A Heartbreaking message from Dr. Warren Hern at Boulder Abortion Clinic (with permission).

After more than 50 years of helping women to have safe abortions at my private medical practice, Boulder Abortion Clinic, we have closed and have stopped scheduling patients. This was a very difficult decision with many factors, as this practice is my life's work. It has given me and others helping me great satisfaction and meaning in our lives. It could not have happened without my superb staff of highly professional and dedicated doctors, nurses, counselors, lab technicians, patient coordinators, administrative staff, records managers, and others beginning on January 22, 1975.

Many of those doing this work with me have been with me for decades. They have shown the utmost courage and commitment to the women who have been our patients in the face of great personal danger from the constant threat of lethal anti-abortion violence that we have experienced. They have shown great personal strength in supporting women and their families in the worst moments of their lives.

It has been a privilege to do this work for almost 55 years. It has been a privilege to know the many exceptional people in this field who were and are devoted to the highest standards of medical care for women and who are dedicated to the fundamental principle of reproductive freedom for everyone.

Although I love my work, I have wanted for years to be free from the operating room and the daily cares of a private medical practice. When I have a patient, I can't do anything else. Her safety and well-being is my priority. Nothing else matters while her life is at stake. I must now leave this sacred commitment to others.

I remain committed to reproductive freedom for women, and I will find other ways to support that.

Warren M. Hern, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D.

Director, Boulder Abortion Clinic

Dr. Hern has been one of the primary providers of late abortion care for decades. Along with his friend and colleague, Dr. George Tiller who was assassinated in 2009, Dr. Hern has cared for women with the most distressing pregnancy situations. This usually involved a diagnosis of a severe fetal anomaly inconsistent with life that forced women who were joyfully anticipating the birth of a wanted child to choose a late abortion.

Here is an account from one of his patients, an OB-GYN with a fetal complication.

I’m An OB-GYN. I Was Forced to Travel Out of State to End My Wanted Pregnancy (HuffPo)

Late abortions have been particularly vilified, when in fact, they represent some of the most dire and heartbreaking situations. Read: Mercy Abortions: What Dr. Tiller Did for more perspective on this issue.

As this retirement illustrates, the brave doctors that started doing abortions 50 years ago are aging out. They are in their 80’s and the pool of replacements has been compromised by years of harassment and negativity. Because of archaic biases, many medical schools fail to teach doctors the basics of abortion care, even though it is central to women’s health.

Medical Students for Choice works to right this wrong, but even they are hampered by antiquated administrations and blatantly anti-abortion views, especially in Catholic schools and hospitals.

Unless we can train a new generation of abortion providers, the promise of legal abortion nationwide remains hollow.

What Can You Do?

Find your local abortion provider and call them and ask them what you can do to help. Keep it local and advocate for your community. Don’t give up.

What Can You Do for Dr. Hern?

(1) Buy his new book: Abortion in the Age of Unreason (or look it up on Amazon)

This vivid account by a nationally prominent doctor reports the daily challenges of offering and receiving abortion services in a volatile political and social atmosphere. In stories from the front lines – from protecting patients and staff from protesters’ attacks to the dangers to women of restricted access to abortion services, and the pertinent findings of his remote research in Latin America, Hern’s book is strikingly detailed just as it exposes the needs of women and the U. S. national interest. Dr. Hern – an abortion specialist, researcher, scholar, and highly visible public advocate –shows how abortion saves women’s lives given the many risks that arise during pregnancy – remarkably more than most people realize. He points to political and national solutions to reverse a reawakened crisis that now threatens democracy. Throughout the book, Dr. Hern shows how the current emergency was largely created by political actors who have exploited and distorted the abortion issue to increase and consolidate their power.

A vital component of women’s health care, the crisis over abortion is not new. Yet the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the steady accumulation of power by America’s right wing has put the issue at a level of urgency and national prominence not seen since the days before legalization. Women’s need for safe abortion services will continue as the struggle to secure their rights intensifies. This book is about that struggle during what has evolved, over the last 50 years, to an Age of Unreason.