Dr Warren Hern retired on 22 January 2025
Published by Routledge, 30 September 2024
After more than 50 years of providing abortions, Dr Warren Hern of Boulder, Colorado, retired on 22 January 2025, the 50th anniversary of opening his private medical practice,Boulder Abortion Clinic, P.C. For years, he has been one of the most high-profile abortion doctors in the United States—one of only a handful of providers to perform abortions in the late second trimester and third trimester of pregnancy.
Though only about 1.5 percent of abortions in the U.S. take place after 20 weeks’ gestation, often due to lethal or serious fetal anomalies or health emergencies of pregnant women, those who perform such abortions have been subject to an even higher level of violence and harassment than that of other providers.
…In a letter to Ms. Executive Editor, Kathy Spillar, reflecting on his five-plus decades in medicine, Hern described his role and his clinic as “providing the safest, most compassionate and highest quality outpatient abortion services available anywhere”.
Though Hern will not be involved in the day-to-day operations of the clinic after this month, the Boulder clinic will continue to offer “surgical and medical abortions from 6 through 32+ weeks’ gestation …. [specializing] in caring for women with advanced pregnancies afflicted with serious medical complications and fetal abnormalities,” according to Hern.
One of the most traumatic events of Hern’s life was the loss of his close friend and colleague, Dr George Tiller, also a provider of later abortions, who was assassinated in his church by an anti-abortion zealot after being assailed for years as “Tiller the Killer,” including by a Fox News personality in 2009.
But even before he started performing third-trimester abortions, Hern faced violent threats. In the earliest days of his abortion practice, as he recounts in a recent memoir, he received so many death threats that he slept with a rifle by his bed. His office was shot up at one point (though no one was injured), leading him to install bulletproof glass. At times, including for his travel to be a pallbearer at Tiller’s funeral, he was assigned federal marshals to accompany him. On trips to professional conferences, he often paid for a security detail.
Though in the early years following Roe, most abortion providers understandably chose to remain below the radar and focus on their medical work, Hern has written prolifically about abortion from the very start, not only in medical journals and in several books, but also for the lay public in periodicals such as the New York Times and Ms., and numerous other places. He was among the first in abortion circles to raise awareness of the emerging threat of the religious right in the 1980s and its connection to anti-abortion terrorism. Decrying the fanaticism that has led to the killings of Tiller and other members of the abortion providing community, he has said on several occasions that “the only difference between the American anti-abortion movement and the Taliban is about 8,000 miles.”
Much of Hern’s writing for the public has been an effort to counter the stigma facing abortion and to humanize abortion providers, who are often met with a lack of sympathy and understanding, even by those who support abortion. For example, in a letter to the New York Times, he criticized the paper’s use of the term “abortionist,” arguing that it was beyond reclamation: “It is a highly charged word that is pejorative, derogatory and defamatory. It is most often used by anti-abortion fanatics with words like ‘murderer,’ ‘baby-killer’ and other slanderous phrases.”
In his memoir, Hern describes the unique role of those who perform abortions: “There may be no work in medicine that demands more of a person in many ways than specializing in abortion services. It not only requires excellent surgical skills, experience, and judgement, but it also requires a broad understanding of how society works.” He continues, “It requires an understanding of how pregnancy, childbirth and abortion affect women and how these experiences occur in a biocultural context.”
It is not surprising that Hern in the above statement emphasizes the importance of attending to the biocultural aspects of reproductive issues. For over 60 years—prior to commencing his domestic abortion practice—he has made repeated visits to the Shipibo people of the Peruvian Amazon, both offering healthcare and studying them from an anthropological perspective. It is this long involvement in the Peruvian work, love of the Colorado outdoors, strong family and friendship ties and, above all, the appreciation of patients, that Hern credits with having enabled him to withstand the stresses of being targeted by the anti-abortion movement.
As Warren Hern moves into the next phase of his life, he will carry the memories of the thousands of women and other pregnancy-capable individuals he has treated over the course his long abortion practice. A note he received from one patient no doubt reflects the feelings of many: “I can’t put into words my gratitude for your compassion during the hardest time in my life.”
Statement of Dr Warren M Hern, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the opening of Boulder Abortion Clinic, P.C. on January 22, 1975:
Boulder Abortion Clinic, P.C. is unique in the history of medicine. It is a small private medical practice of one physician who decided to specialize in outpatient abortion services for women who need this kind of medical care. The purpose was to offer and provide the safest, most supportive, humane abortion care for women in a clean, dignified setting that gives maximum emotional and social support for those who choose to be patients here.
The name of the medical practice, “Boulder Abortion Clinic,” is not accidental. It is a forthright, honest statement of purpose and action. “This is what we do here.” “This is who we are.” There is no euphemism or deceit. We are proud of what we do, and we are here to help women and their families.
“Boulder Abortion Clinic” is no longer just the statement of identity of a single medical office or solely the vision and purpose of one doctor. It is a statement of physical, social, political, and economic fact. It is a historic fact. It is a legal fact. It is a fact that has survived many assaults. It has meaning for many people. It is a symbol of hope for some. It is a symbol of evil for others.
It is now a symbol of resistance to tyranny and oppression. It is a symbol of resistance to fascism and the obliteration of women as participants in human society. It is an assertion of the value of the individual spirit and the importance of the rights and needs of individuals to be who they are. It is a statement that women are free to choose their own lives and destinies. It is a statement that women’s bodies do not belong to the State – or to anyone else. They belong to the women who live in them.
My purpose at this time as I begin to reach the end of my career as a physician is to assure that the foundations are laid for the continuation of this private medical practice in the best medical, administrative, and leadership hands I can find. I am surrounded by them in my current staff.
We now face the terror of a brutal fascist government in the United States that is relentlessly hostile to women and to our work. We will continue to serve women and their families and hope that the communities around us will protect our work.
Warren M Hern, MD, MPH, PhD
Director, Boulder Abortion Clinic, PC
From the Boulder Abortion Clinic website:
Anti-Abortion Demonstrations
Although Dr Hern and Boulder Abortion Clinic have been the frequent targets of anti-abortion demonstrations in the past because of Dr Hern’s leadership in this area, demonstrations have become quite infrequent. This could be because anti-abortion demonstrators have learned that Boulder is the most pro-choice community in the United States and that Dr Hern is not someone who is intimidated by terrorist tactics. It is not likely that you will encounter any anti-abortion activity at Boulder Abortion Clinic. However, if you do, give us a call from a few blocks away and we will get you safely into the office without having to deal with the demonstrators.” https://www.drhern.com/contact-us/
SOURCE: Ms. Magazine, by Carole Joffe, 17 January 2025
[Our movement owes Dr Hern a huge debt of gratitude for his lifelong courage and humanity in providing abortions, especially second and third trimester abortions, because they are always so needed, and his role in leading others to do so too. Marge Berer, Editor]