Warren Hern is one of the last abortionists who openly performs late-term abortions on viable babies in the U.S.
Abortion activists have painted Hern as a hero for doing late-term abortions when few others will, but they ignore Hern’s reputation for injuring women and lying to them about their unborn babies.
The latest evidence of his lies was revealed in a recent interview on the pro-abortion blog Jezebel. A woman, “Elizabeth,” shared the troubling story about how she aborted her unborn son at 32 weeks of pregnancy after doctors predicted that he would not live outside the womb.
Elizabeth said she went to Hern’s Boulder, Colorado abortion facility and paid him $10,000 cash. He charges most late-term abortion patients $25,000 cash up front, she said.
Elizabeth described Hern and his staff as kind and caring, but if she had done her research, she quickly would have learned that Hern lied to her about her unborn son. She told Jezebel:
I asked him if he thought the baby would feel the shot, and he said no. I mentioned an article I’d read about tests where they prick a baby in utero, and the baby jumps. I asked him, “Doesn’t that mean that the baby can feel pain?”
He said, “No. If you prick a frog, it jumps because it has reflexes. A fetus does have reflexes, but doesn’t mean that they can feel and contemplate pain.” He told me that whatever that fetus feels is not like the pain they would feel on the outside.
“That’s real pain,” he said. “And whatever he might feel, it doesn’t touch the pain you are feeling as a grown, thinking, feeling woman.”
It was interesting to me, as a liberal, non-religious person, to see how much of that anti-choice rhetoric I had internalized. I can already hear the other side saying, “Well of course he’s going to say that. He’s a f—- abortion doctor.” But I think he’s really honest. He’s a brilliant doctor with 40 years of information, and he was giving us really no-nonsense information the whole time.
But what Hern told her is a lie. Abortion activists contest evidence that unborn babies feel pain at the 20-week mark, but even they cite studies showing that unborn babies likely feel pain by 30 weeks. Elizabeth’s baby was 32 weeks along, meaning he probably felt extreme pain during the abortion.
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Some research suggests that unborn babies can feel pain even earlier. Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into fetal pain. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for unborn pain. He has testified before Congress in the past that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier.” Researchers also have found that unborn babies respond to touch as early as six weeks.
Also, there is Maureen Condic, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah and obtained her Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. She is a widely-published scientist whose works have appeared in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals.
“The earliest “rudiment” of the human nervous system forms by 28 days (four weeks) after sperm – egg fusion. At this stage, the primitive brain is already “patterned”; i.e. cells in different regions are specified to produce structures appropriate to their location in the nervous system as a whole,” she told lawmakers in Congress in 2013.
Dr. Condic explained, “Over the next several weeks, the brain will grow enormously and generate many complex connections, but the overall organization of the nervous system is established by four weeks. This is significant because it shows that even at this early stage, the brain is not anything like a mere collection of cells or a “blank slate” to be written upon by later developmental processes. Like all embryonic organs, the structure of the early brain “anticipates” the function of the mature system.”
Some of Hern’s other patients said he also lied to them about the risks of late-term abortions. Hern currently is facing a lawsuit from a Nebraska woman who alleges that he botched her abortion and left part of her unborn son’s head inside her womb. As a result, the woman said she no longer is able to have children.
In the lawsuit, the woman also said Hern and his staff never informed her of any possible risks of having a late-term abortion.
But that isn’t the only deception that Hern is caught up in. Live Action News writer Sarah Terzo said Hern wrote a textbook about performing abortions, which unintentionally reveals how the abortion industry lies about the reasons women have late-term abortions.
Abortion activists want the public to believe that women only have late-term abortions in the most extreme circumstances, such as when their life is in danger or their unborn baby has a fatal condition. But in his textbook “Abortion Practice,” Hern explains the truth.
“At times, medical considerations enter into the picture, but decisions are usually made on the basis of such factors as desire or lack of desire for parenthood, stability of relationships, educational status, emotional status, or economic status, among others,” according to the textbook.
Terzo wrote:
Hern is referring to abortions throughout pregnancy here. He is a late-term abortionist, committing abortions all the way up until the day of birth, even advertising to do third trimester abortions right on his website. His clinic is in Boulder, Colorado.
Are these reasons good enough reasons to kill a baby at any time? See what an 8-week-old baby looks like after being ripped apart in an abortion, then ask yourself whether these are good reasons for abortion.
Hern claims on his website that third trimester abortions are done for “catastrophic fetal anomaly or genetic disorder that guarantees death, suffering, or serious disability.” Yet there is a discrepancy between what Hern says to the “public” on the internet and what he says in a book exclusively meant for abortionists and would-be abortionists.
Even when abortions are done for “catastrophic fetal anomaly,” they are often on babies with illnesses like Down syndrome — a common reason why abortions are done this late.
Hern is not alone. Numerous reports from women, undercover investigators and others have revealed how the abortion industry repeatedly and intentionally lies to women about their unborn babies and the risks of abortion on their own health.
