Late term abortionist shutters Boulder clinic after 50 years taking lives of the unborn

Hern, who The New Yorker profiled in September 2024, was "one of the few physicians who openly perform late abortions." He told the storied leftist magazine that he "thinks women are worse off today than they were" when he started his practice in the mid-1970s. Late-term abortions are defined as those after 21 weeks of gestation, past the point of viability.

In his memoir on the topic, Hern, per The New Yorker, "methodically walks the reader through what late abortions can entail: dismemberment of the fetus; intentional cranial collapse." He calls abortion "a fundamental, essential part of reproductive health care for women."

As for his belief in the need for late-term abortions, he said that while they are rare, his clinic's "special interest is in helping women who are having abortions later in pregnancy because they have the most difficult circumstances. They're at the end of the line. They can't find anyone else to do this." He detailed specific medical instances where a baby would be stillborn where removing the fetus is essential, but also believes that there are good reasons to abort a baby who will have "nothing but a suffering experience in life."

"The woman doesn’t want her baby to suffer. She wants to end the pregnancy before that happens. Abortion is a clear therapeutic treatment of the condition of pregnancy where the woman is not going to have a healthy baby," Hern said.

He also discussed that pregnancy itself is harmful. "The basic fact is that if you’re pregnant, you’re at risk of dying from that pregnancy. Doesn’t matter whether you’re happy about being pregnant.

"If having the abortion at any point in pregnancy is between fifteen and twenty times safer than carrying the pregnancy to term, what is the possible justification for forcing a woman to continue the pregnancy if she doesn’t want to?" Hern told The New Yorker.

"This was a very difficult decision with many factors," Hern writes announcing his practice's closure, "as this practice is my life's work. It has given me and others helping me great satisfaction and meaning in our lives." He then goes on to praise his staff. The practice began in January 1975, a year that had shockingly low birth rates due to the rise in abortion, contraception, and the deaths of American young men in the Vietnam War.

"It has been a privilege to do this work for almost 55 years," Hern writes. "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."

Hern notes that he has "wanted for years to be free from the operating room and the daily cares of a private medical practice" and that when he has a patient, "her safety and well-being is [his] priority. Nothing else matters while her life is at stake."

"I must now leave this sacred commitment to others," he writes. "I remain committed to reproductive freedom for women, and I will find other ways to support that."