A reporter said most of Warren Hern’s late-term abortions are for health reasons. Here’s what that really means.

By Sarah Terzo

Recently, Los Angeles Times reporter Robin Abcarian interviewed abortionist Warren Hern.

A Creative Definition of “Health”

Abcarian says:

Almost all his procedures are in the late stages of pregnancy, usually because the fetus has a catastrophic medical condition, or the pregnancy endangers the woman’s health.

This is likely what Hern told her, and she seems to have accepted it uncritically.

But what Abcarian doesn’t say (and probably doesn’t know) is that Hern has a very different definition of “health” than the average person.

In another article about Hern in The Atlantic reporter Elaine Godfrey asked Hern if he would commit a late-term abortion on a healthy woman. The article says:

‘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.’

Since Hern believes every pregnancy threatens a pregnant person’s health, and therefore any abortion is done because of health, the claim that most of his abortions are done for “health” is meaningless.

Abuse of the Health Exception

The “health” exception has been widely abused. This is why pro-lifers often say that abortion amendments that allow third-trimester abortions only in cases when a woman’s “health” is endangered really allow abortion on demand until birth.

For example, Florida’s proposed Amendment 4, which will be on the ballet in November, states:

[N]o law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.

The “patient’s healthcare provider” is the abortionist.

Yet voters will look at the language of the Amendment and think it protects most third-trimester babies. They will believe that abortions in the third trimester will only be done for pregnant people who are experiencing severe health problems. Some pro-choice people who support the Amendment may believe so as well.

Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry, of course, know exactly what the proposed Amendment means.

The Life of the Mother Exception

Hern took things a step further when he commented on a proposed law with a “life of the mother” exception.

He said, “I will certify that any pregnancy is a threat to a woman’s life and could cause grievous injury to her physical health.”¹

In a previous article, I wrote about how some abortionists are using a pregnant person’s threat of suicide (regardless of how sincere it is) to legitimize third-trimester abortions when there is a “life of the mother” exception.

Pro-lifers then, must walk a fine line when crafting abortion bans. On the one hand, we need to make sure the “life of the mother” doesn’t become a loophole. On the other hand, we need to ensure that people whose lives are legitimately threatened by pregnancy can have their pregnancies ended.

After all, sometimes the baby cannot be saved, and both mother and baby will die without intervention. (Some examples are pre-eclampsia before viability and infections caused by premature rupture of the membranes.)

These pregnancies can be terminated by inducing labor or doing C-sections. One pro-life group argues that this isn’t an abortion because the baby isn’t directly killed, and the primary goal of the procedure isn’t the death of the baby, although the baby dies from prematurity.

For a procedure to qualify as an abortion, in their view, its intent must be to kill the child. If the procedure is meant to save the mother’s life, and the baby’s death is an unavoidable consequence, it is an early delivery, not an abortion. Motive, then, matters more than the outcome.

However, this definition is not widely accepted, and doctors need to know what they can legally do and what they can’t.

Also, it does not address what can be done when the woman’s life is in danger in the first trimester of pregnancy, when the only options are a surgical aspiration abortion or the abortion pill.

Warren Hern Will Do a Late-Term Abortion For Any Reason

Warren Hern’s website openly advertises third-trimester abortions and puts them in a separate category from those done for fetal anomaly or disability.

Nothing in his advertising suggests that he will turn away anyone seeking an abortion in the third trimester.

And then he admits to doing abortions for sex-selection in the article in the Atlantic:

Hern had told me about a woman who’d sought an abortion because she didn’t want to have a baby girl. I thought he had refused.

 

But, when I followed up to ask him why, I learned that I had misunderstood. Hern said he had done abortions for sex selection twice: once for this woman; and once for someone who’d desperately wanted a girl. It was their choice to make, he explained.

Attacking the Motives of Pro-Lifers

Abcarian quotes Hern describing his views as well as attacking those who disagree with him:

The treatment of choice for pregnancy is abortion unless the woman wants to carry the pregnancy to term and have a baby.

 

That is a view that is abhorrent to those who believe that the purpose of women, aside from giving men pleasure and doing the housework, is to have as many babies as possible.

I’ve been involved in the pro-life movement for well over thirty years, and I have never met a pro-life person who believes that the only purpose women have is having many babies, pleasing men, and doing housework.

In fact, most pro-lifers I know are women themselves. They certainly don’t feel that way about their lives or their purpose.

A Horrified Abortionist-in-Training

Later in the article, Hern gives another possible reason why people might oppose late-term abortion when he admits:

Our whole entire evolutionary experience is to take care of small helpless creatures, including human babies. That’s the core biocultural problem with this.

 

He then describes a time when he was training another doctor to be an abortionist. The abortion was being done at 34 weeks. The abortionist in training was so horrified by what she witnessed, that she had to leave the room.

 

Hern says, “This was rather disconcerting to her, and I told her there was nothing wrong with feeling that way.”

He seems to be able to understand that some other doctors find his work horrifying, but he assumes all pro-lifers are motivated by misogyny.

Incidentally, Abcarian doesn’t say why the 34-week abortion was done, or whether the woman or child was unhealthy. Perhaps she didn’t care enough to ask.

Regardless, though, it’s clear that Hern is willing to do a third-trimester abortion for any reason, despite what Abcarian claims. Her article is just one more example of a seemingly endless stream of misinformation about late-term abortions.

Footnotes

1.     Frank J. Murray “Daschle Bill May Not Ban Anything; Abortionists Could Use Own Judgment” Washington Times May 15, 1997

Editor’s note. This appeared on Sarah’s substack and reposted with permission.

You can read her other posts here.