By Dr. Warren Hern, 11/6/06, published on RHRealityCheck.org
Women
who come to my office for late abortions are, without exception, in
extreme distress. The most difficult situations are those in which the
pregnancy is desired but a diagnosis of fetal abnormality or genetic
disorder has been made. Also, medical conditions occur that require
termination of the pregnancy, sometimes under emergency conditions.
These are not uncommon, especially in a practice such as mine that
specializes in late abortion. The anguish that women and their partners
and family experience under these circumstances is profound. It is a
major life event and it is a terrible loss.
There are teenagers who have become pregnant following a Special Series
first sexual intercourse and who are uninformed about anatomy,
physiology, and pregnancy. They are often terrified and don’t know what
to do until a family member sees the obvious evidence of advanced
pregnancy. Outside of tribal societies in which adolescent pregnancy
and family formation is the norm, what 14 or 16 year-old girl in this
society is prepared to raise and nurture a child? The medical risks of
adolescent pregnancy are very serious, and they have life-threatening
and life-altering effects.
There are women who are heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol and
whose fetuses are unquestionably damaged. Their individual illness,
which is part of a national epidemic, prevents them from both effective
contraception and early awareness of the pregnancy not to mention
prenatal care. What social purpose is served by making these women
carry their pregnancies to term?
While I am engaged in the process of providing a complicated and
difficult medical service to these women, the political debate rages
and threatens continuation of my medical practice. This is aside from
the threat of assassination which we have experienced at the hands of
anti-abortion fanatics for over thirty years.
On May 15, 1997, a young couple sat in the recovery room after the
woman’s late abortion operation, sobbing as they tried to come to grips
with the loss of what they had hoped would be a happy, healthy child.
At the same time, in another part of my office, I was monitoring a
cruel, mindless, and lurid debate about “partial-birth abortion” on the
floor of the United States Senate led by Republican members. It was
surreal. The demagogues unfortunately included Democrat Tom Daschle,
who wanted to prove himself more anti-abortion than the Republican
fanatics. So he attacked me by name and threatened to have me thrown in
jail for performing the very surgery I had just performed – surgery
that was required, not desired, and which had nothing whatever to do
with “partial-birth abortion.” These are not good conditions for
practicing medicine.
Dr. Warren M. Hern is the Director of the Boulder Abortion Clinic.