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

Quote:“There isn’t a single woman who has ever written on her bucket list that she wants to have a late abortion,” Catherine said. “There is always a reason.”

The reason doesn’t really matter to Hern. Medical viability for a fetus—or its ability to survive outside the uterus—is generally considered to be somewhere from 24 to 28 weeks. Hern, though, believes that the viability of a fetus is determined not by gestational age but by a woman’s willingness to carry it. He applies the same principle to all of his prospective patients: If he thinks it’s safer for them to have an abortion than to carry and deliver the baby, he’ll take the case—usually up until around 32 weeks, with some rare later exceptions, because of the increased risk of hemorrhage and other life-threatening conditions beyond that point.

Quote:Regardless of the circumstances of pregnancy, in Hern’s view, a woman’s life—her humanity, her wishes—isn’t just more important than her fetus’s. It is virtually the only thing that matters. That approach is diametrically opposed to the view of anti-abortion advocates, for whom pregnancy means motherhood and, often, self-sacrifice.

[...]

“So if a pregnant woman with no health issues comes to the clinic, say, at 30 weeks, what would you do?” I asked Hern once. The question irked him. “Every pregnancy is a health issue!” he said. “There’s a certifiable risk of death from being pregnant, period.”

Quote:Thirteen years after Tiller’s death, Hern and I stayed up late talking in the restaurant of my hotel. Hern was speaking so loudly—about Donald Trump, fascism, and anti-abortion violence—that the bartender had begun to stare. Opposition to abortion has long been “the hammer and tongs to power” for the Republican Party, Hern was saying, “because of their allegiance to the white Christian nationalists and white supremacists.” Christianity, he told me, not for the first time, “is now the face of fascism in America.”

(Jan 15 2025, 9:48 AM)Elsacat Pregnancy and childbirth are natural but don't come without risks.

(Jan 15 2025, 9:48 AM)Elsacat The man's right. Every pregnancy is a health issue. Wasn't childbirth the leading cause of death for women and babies up until 150 years ago? (discovery of germ theory, improvements in hygiene and surgery, etc. helped change that) Pregnancy and childbirth are natural but don't come without risks.