USA – THE ABORTION ABSOLUTIST

Warren Hern has been performing late abortions for half a century. After Roe, he is as busy with patients as ever.

By Elaine Godfrey
MAY 12, 2023

The sky above Boulder was dark when the abortion doctor picked me up for dinner. I had to squint to recognize Warren Hern in his thick aviator glasses and fur-trapper hat.

At the restaurant—a kitschy Italian spot along a pedestrian mall—Hern ignored the table the waiter offered us, pointed at one in the corner, and clomped over in his heavy hiking boots. He’d like to order right away, he said: the osso buco and a glass of Spanish red. How long will that take?

Continued: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2023/05/dr-warren-hern-abortion-post-roe/674000/


USA – As a med student, he saw women nearly die from illegal abortions. At 83, he sees no end to his work

BY MOLLY HENNESSY-FISKE, HOUSTON BUREAU CHIEF
Photography by GINA FERAZZI
MARCH 10, 2022

BOULDER, Colo. — Dr. Warren Hern doesn’t have to imagine what could befall many women in America if the Supreme Court strikes down Roe vs. Wade.

In 1963, he was a medical student working nights at Colorado General Hospital in Denver. Women would arrive in septic shock, some probably hours from death. “Nobody talked about why they were there,” Hern recalled.

Continued: https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-03-10/abortion-doctor-fears-roes-fall


What explains Donald Trump’s war on late-term abortions?

What explains Donald Trump’s war on late-term abortions?
Attacks on the rare but controversial procedures are designed to please more than evangelicals

Aug 22nd 2019

WHILE LEROY CARHART, a doctor who specialises in late-term abortions, was finishing his most recent termination, the manager of his clinic in Bethesda, Maryland, outlined the procedure. Abortions in the second half of pregnancy take between two and four days, said Christine Spiegoski, a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read: “Don’t like abortion? Prevent pregnancy by f**king yourself!” First, the doctor injects potassium chloride or digoxin into the fetus’s heart, killing it within minutes. If he is unable to reach the heart and instead pumps the drug into the amniotic sac, death can take up to 24 hours. Dr Carhart euthanises the fetus at the beginning of the procedure because its tissue and skull then soften and contract, easing removal. At 25 weeks a fetus weighs around a pound and a half and is over a foot long; some of those Dr Carhart aborts are older.

Continued: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2019/08/22/what-explains-donald-trumps-war-on-late-term-abortions


A Texas abortion procedure ban is unnecessary, full of theatrics and harmful to women

A Texas abortion procedure ban is unnecessary, full of theatrics and harmful to women

By The Times Editorial Board
Nov 12, 2018

No matter how often a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion is upheld by federal courts, there’s a state legislature somewhere trying to make it impossible for her to have one. The assaults on abortion rights have come in waves, as state legislatures dominated by anti-abortion lawmakers simultaneously pursue the same new legal gambits until blocked by a federal judge, at which point they change tactics and try again.

Most recently, abortion opponents have shifted from seeking restrictions ostensibly designed to protect the health of a pregnant woman — such as requiring abortion clinics to be outfitted like outpatient surgery centers, or requiring doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital — to ones that focus on the fetus. For example, Texas and a number of other states slapped tough new restrictions on the dilation and evacuation procedure, or D&E, the safest and most common second-trimester abortion, calling it a “dismemberment abortion” and describing the procedure in ghoulish detail.

Continued: http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-texas-ban-second-trimester-abortion-20181112-story.html