After more than 50 years of providing abortions, Dr. Warren Hern of Boulder, Colo. will retire on Jan. 22 of this year. For 50+ years, he has been one of the most high-profile—and controversial—abortion doctors in the United States. This controversy has stemmed from his work as one of only a handful of providers to perform abortions in the late second trimester and the 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. 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 antiabortion zealot after being assailed for years as “Tiller the Killer,” including by a Fox News personality. 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.”
