I think while watching the circus of Supreme court Judge's confirmation hearings
it is timely to republish this important article.
The Same Nancy Reagan had no qualms to change her tune when it suited her.
"It was November 1994 when Ronald Reagan revealed his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease to the American public. Although some observers had suspected the former president developed Alzheimer’s while still in office — and even parsed his speeches for clues — his family insisted he was not stricken until he left the White House"
Life on the Front Lines
Warren M. Hern, MD, MPH, PhD
Director
Boulder Abortion Clinic
Boulder, Colorado
Assistant Clinical Professor
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
Denver, Colorado
T
he first abortion I performed was for a 17-year-old high school student
who told me as I talked to her before the operation that she
wanted to be a doctor and an anesthesiologist. I was terrified, and so
was she. She cried after the operation for sadness and relief. Her
tears and the immensity of the moment brought my tears. I had helped her
change her life. I was relieved that this young woman was safe to go on with
her life and realize her dreams. I felt I had found a new definition of the idea
of medicine as an act of compassion and love for one's fellow human beings,
an idea that I gained from learning about Albert Schweitzer. I had followed
that ideal by working as a medical student at a Schweitzer-inspired hospital
in the Peruvian Amazon in 1964 and later as a Peace Corps physician in Brazil.
It was a long way from Schweitzer's primitive hospitals in the steaming jungles
of Gabon and Peru to the operating room at Preterm Clinic in Washington,
DC, in 1971. But to me, this was a renewed and compelling expression
of that fundamental commitment in medicine that comes down to us from
Hippocrates, Galen, and Ambroise Par6 through Maimonides, the Jewish
physician of 12th century Spain, who wrote "... and let me only see the
suffering person, my fellow human being in pain. ''1
That moment in Preterm, the first freestanding abortion clinic in the
nation's capitol, led me to the tumultuous experience of providing abortion
services through a time of a great upheaval over this issue in our nation's
history. I was working at the time at the Office of Economic Opportunity to
change federal government restrictions on abortion funding, 2 and I began
corresponding with various abortion rights groups such as the National Association
for the Repeal of Abortion Laws and the Women's National Abortion
Action Coalition. I was privileged to hear the Supreme Court arguments
in the Vuitch, Roe v Wade, and Doe v Bolton cases and to know the doctors and
lawyers involved with the cases. Although I was keenly interested in the
public health and social justice aspects of abortion, I did not see myself providing
services or even practicing clinical medicine.
After returning to Colorado, I worked part-time as the medical director of
a family-planning training program under private contract with the US Department
of Health, Education, and Welfare. Bringing doctors in the Rocky
This article as originally published
in WHI Vol. 3, No. 3, Fall 1993 contained
unauthorized alterations
and is hereby republished in corrected
form. We regret the errors---
Warren M. Pearse, MD, Editor.
© 1994 by The Jacobs Institute of
Women's Health
1049-3867/94/$7.00
48 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994
Mountain region information about new abortion methods was part of my
work. In April 1973, I was asked if I would be interested in helping start a
nonprofit abortion clinic in Boulder. I said I would, because I now saw the
main challenge before us as implementing the Supreme Court's recent Roe v
Wade decision. The freedom to choose a safe and legal abortion meant nothing
without someone willing to do it. I thought it would be a valuable thing to do
while I was preparing to go back to graduate work in epidemiology. It allowed
me to put my beliefs about the need for this service into action. I did not feel
highly prepared, but I felt confident of my basic surgical and medical skills.
After meeting with the group in Boulder and coming to an agreement about
the project, I responded to their request that I write a program plan and set up
the clinic. I made myself medical director reporting to the executive director, who
was a sociology graduate student, and the board of directors, which was composed
of dedicated individuals who were deeply concerned with safe abor~on.
In trying to establish relationships with the Boulder medical community,
I applied for privileges at Boulder Community Hospital to be able to admit
patients with complications. The chairman of the obstetrics-gynecology staff
had been one of my attending physicians when I was in medical school in
Denver. He was deeply opposed to abortion, which I discovered at the first
obstetrics-gynecology staff meeting I attended several days after we opened
the clinic in November 1973. The conversation stopped as I entered the meeting
area that had been set off by sliding screens in the hospital cafeteria.
Several other staff doctors were also opposed to abortion. Other physicians
on the staff, who regarded abortion as a menial operation but one that must
be performed by someone specially trained in obstetrics and gynecology, did
not think someone like myself without that residency training should do
abortions. There were one or two who were silent and raised no opposition.
They proved to be my allies in a long struggle.
About this time, a local newspaper reported attacks by the newly formed
Fight the Abortion Clinic Committee (FTACC) in Boulder, which demanded
that the city council close the clinic as a "clear and present danger" to community
health. We were accused of "corrupting the youth" because the clinic
was only a block from a public junior high school and a Catholic school. I
thought of Socrates and felt solace.
The FTACC requested a special meeting of the Colorado Board of Health,
to which the FTACC alleged virtually that we were running a butcher shop.
I came to the meeting prepared with the statistics, including complication
rates and follow-up rates, for our first month's patients. I also informed the
Board that regulations requested by the FTACC would probably violate the
Doe v Bolton companion decision to Roe v Wade. The meeting was widely (and
favorably, from our point of view) covered by the regional news media. The
board decided to leave us alone.
At the November meeting of the Boulder County Medical Society, a
group of antiabortion doctors formed a committee with the purpose of getting
the society to pass a resolution asking the state and county health boards to
declare the clinic a "clear and present danger" to public health and requesting
the boards to shut down the clinic. One of my classmates from medical school
recommended an investigation of the clinic before deciding on the resolution.
On the day of the December meeting, we were visited by a delegation from
the committee, two antiabortion physicians (including the hospital obstetricsgynecology
department chairman). I took them on a guided tour and explained
our procedures. At the meeting that evening, the committee chairman,
to the astonishment and dismay of our opponents, announced that our
standards of medical care were "exemplary and commendable" and "equal to
the highest standards of medical care in the community." The resolution
opposing us was derailed by a friendly pediatrician.
WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994 HERb/: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES 49
In December, the day after the Colorado Board of Health meeting and the
week after the medical society meeting, I went to a quarterly meeting of the
Boulder Community Hospital Medical Staff, where my request for hospital
privileges would be decided. A rancorous debate over my privileges went on
for 45 minutes. The antiabortion department chief argued against my staff
appointment on several grounds. He said I lived too far away to see a sick
patient in an emergency, which was necessary before a consultant would see
her. Someone pointed out that this had not been a problem for a neurosurgeon
from Denver who had requested and received privileges the year before.
The debate ended when an obstetrician-gynecologist whom I had met, and
who was strongly pro-choice, stood up and guaranteed his consultation if I
needed it at any time. My appointment was approved by a narrow majority.
When we started in the first week of November 1973, we were the only
freestanding abortion clinic in Colorado. The pickets began. The Boulder
Valley Right-to-Life Committee sent out lurid brochures covered with pictures
of dismembered fetuses to every household in Boulder County. I began
to get threatening phone calls at home, every night I was home, all night. I
was afraid to get out of my car when I got home. I got a rifle and kept it by
my bed. Two nights a week, in order to be available for patients who might
have problems from the first day of laminaria insertion to the next day of
abortion procedure, I slept on one of the cots in the clinic's recovery room. In
the evenings, I worked on charts and wrote letters to people who referred
patients. I knew hardly anyone in Boulder and had no friends in town except
for a couple of classmates from medical school, and our lives were very
different. They had normal medical practices, and they were already leaders
in the community.
When the weekend came, I went to my mountain home to relax. It did
not seem to me that the people I met in Boulder, save those at the clinic, were
very supportive of what we were doing, although they may have been more
supportive than I knew. I just saw the hate letters and got the threatening
phone calls.
Picketers would walk in front of the clinic during work hours from time
to time. I would go out in my green scrub suit and ask them what they were
doing. Sometimes I would just make pleasant remarks. They carried signs
saying I was a murderer. It gave me some satisfaction for a time to know that
I was irritating them.
In the summer of 1974, a Denver television station decided to have a
major program on abortion set up as a debate. I debated a family doctor who
was head of the Boulder Valley Right-to-Life Committee. Each of us was
flanked by two supporters. I have no idea how many people saw the program,
but it seemed to help make me a target of opprobrium of the antiabortion
fanatics. After a subsequent debate, I had to be taken out the back door
to escape the antiabortion mob that threatened to come up over the desk
separating the speakers from the audience.
That summer of 1974, the Denver chapter of the National Organization
for Women held an outdoor rally at East High School in Denver to honor
those who had helped women's rights and progress. I was one of these they
chose to honor.
At the rally, the antiabortion fanatics showed up shouting my name and
calling me a murderer. They had numerous signs showing my name and
various descriptions of me, none of them flattering. As I began to speak, they
began to shout. I spoke above them. It was a little frightening, it was exhilarating,
and I was all but overcome with emotion. There was really something
fearsome about people who hated me so much and who would go after me in
a personal way. I spoke of the need for safe and legal abortions for the sake
of women and their families. I said we would not return to back-alley abor50
HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994
tions for the same reasons that we would not go back to slavery, public
flogging, and the bubonic plague. That barbaric time in history is over. I felt
defiant. But I also felt afraid of what those people might try to do to me. It was
a defining moment.
At the end of the first year of operation, it was clear that those who held
power at Boulder Valley Clinic and I had very different ideas about what we
were doing and why. 3 They wanted no one person in charge of the clinic nor
did they want a medical director. Among other things, they abolished my job
and title but not my responsibilities. After long weeks of painful debate, I
resigned.
I felt by this time that providing abortion services was the most important
thing I could do in medicine. I took my last week's salary and used it as a
deposit on a small office space, being careful not to tell the lease manager that
I planned to do abortions. I knew that revealing this would make it impossible
to find office space in Boulder. I went to a local bank to look for help. The
banker expressed the view that my former employer, the abortion clinic, had
brought a lot of "undesirables" into town. ! didn't know if he thought or
realized that I was one of the "undesirable" elements to which he referred,
but I did not go to pains to explain to him the objectives of my medical
practice. I borrowed $7000, remodeled the office, and saw three patients on
the second anniversary of Roe v Wade. Four years later, when the doctors
upstairs moved to their own new building, I took over their space and, with
more loans, I bought the building so I could not be kicked out later by an antiabortion
owner.
Now we faced the street across from the hospital. The picketers began to
make regular visits to my office. By this time, I had to change my home phone
number and have it unlisted.
On one occasion, I went out to the parking lot to write down the license
numbers of cars whose owners were picketing and harassing my patients.
One of the picketers got in his car and tried to run over me in the parking lot.
At the time, I was running about 5 miles a day and I could escape the car's
path, but it was frightening because I could see him coming after me. I
reported this incident to the Boulder police, but there was no prosecution.
The man was a regular demonstrator at my office.
The patients came from all over--first Colorado, then all of North America.
Their stories were compelling. We gave each patient careful individual
attention. I found that getting to know the patients and their families was the
most rewarding part of the experience, and it was gratifying to see what a
positive event this was for them in their lives. Each day, each patient, some
more than others, convinced me of the absolute need for the service we were
providing and the need for it to be as high a quality as we could make it.
We did not just provide a medical service. We had to solve important
problems for individuals and families that frequently had nowhere else to
turn. We dealt with problems of acute emotional need and suffering, acute
family and social disorganization, frequently under circumstances of severe
economic deprivation and social injustice, individual grief and loss, occasional
psychiatric disorder, and wrenching religious and philosophical issues,
all in a context of public controversy.
In my own way, I worked to find better ways of doing abortions safely,
especially second-trimester abortions, because they seemed hard to get and
more dangerous than early abortions. 4-8 In 1984, my textbook, Abortion Practice,
was published. The publisher was deluged with hate mail and threats of
boycott. In 1989, the publisher destroyed more than 300 of the remaining 350
books and took it out of print. The next year, I formed my own publishing
company and published the book in a softcover edition to keep it in print. 9
The attacks on abortion rights had begun to escalate from civilized deWHI
Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES 51
bates to personal and legislative attacks. Colorado was led by a strong prochoice
Governor, Dick Lamm, who had successfully introduced the nation's
first abortion reform law and saw it passed into law in 1967. But the Colorado
legislature was increasingly controlled by those who were not pro-choice.
On November 5, 1980, the day after his election, Ronald Reagan held his
first press conference. The very first thing he said was that he intended to
make abortion illegal. 1° After he took office and lent the power of the Presidency
to the antiabortion fanatics, the violent attacks on clinics increased
dramatically. 11-13 The demonstrators were literally on our doorsteps. Threats
on my life and harassment of all kinds increased. The fetus became a fetish
object for the antiabortion fanatics, a moral symbol that justified their actions.
Our only option for taking the high moral ground was to place our own
lives and bodies on the line. We must risk our lives for our cause by continuing
to provide safe abortion services in the face of these threats and attempts
to intimidate. Only our own moral courage in doing what we see as right and
ethical could be an effective counterpoise to the antiabortion movement.
By December 1984, two dozen abortion clinics had been completely destroyed
in that year alone. The head of the FBI, William Webster, declared
that violence against abortion clinics was "not terrorism" because the FBI
didn't know the identities of the perpetrators. 14
On October 19, 1985, a rock was thrown through the front window of my
clinic, hurled by a follower of Joseph Scheidler, head of the Chicago Pro-Life
Action League of Chicago, who was due to arrive in Boulder the following
week. Scheidler, whose 6'4" bulk towered over me, told me to my face in 1984
that he was coming to Boulder to "shut down" my clinic. He was now about
to attempt to deliver on his threat. He was scheduled to speak at the University
of Colorado at the invitation of a right-wing group and to work with the
local Right-to-Life group to close my office. 15
On the following Monday, the glass company was due to replace the
plywood covering the empty frame with new glass. I cancelled the repair job,
and when I got to the office, I made a hand-lettered sign, "THIS WINDOW
WAS BROKEN BY THOSE WHO HATE FREEDOM." The sign was at
Scheidler's back as he spoke to the television cameras that afternoon.
Several months later, I was sued for slander by the antiabortion groups for
publicly stating that they had created "an atmosphere of violence and confrontation,
''16 but I was defended free of charge by some of the best constitutional
lawyers in Colorado, and the antiabortion groups had to pay attorney's fees.
The connection between attacks on abortion by Ronald Reagan and other
high officials and antiabortion harassment and terrorism were increasingly
plain for anyone to see, 17-19 but it did not seem to be of much concern to the
public or to opposition political leaders. On February 6, 1988, the day Ronald
Reagan announced the "gag rule" and the day after Pat Robertson spoke to
the New Hampshire legislature and accused Planned Parenthood of trying to
create a "master race" by providing abortion services, five bullets were fired
through the front windows of my waiting room with a high-powered rifle.
2°'21 The next day, I held a press conference on my front lawn to denounce
the criminals who did it, and offered a reward of $5000 for information leading
to their arrest. We installed bulletproof windows and electronic security
systems at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.
The gunshots fired into my office occurred in the same week that my
divorce was final. The two events were not unrelated, because the antiabortion
harassment had a disastrous effect on my marriage of 6 years. The juxtaposition
of the two events did nothing positive for my self-esteem.
On September 25, 1988, while campaigning for the Presidency, George
Bush expressed the view that doctors who do abortions should be imprisoned.
He was elected by a landslide.
52 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994
On October 10, 1990, Joseph Scheidler's prot6gG Randall Terry, national
head of Operation Rescue, stood with his followers in front of my clinic and
prayed for my death. CBS "60 Minutes" showed a tape of Terry's prayer on
their broadcast concerning the "Lambs of Christ" on February 2, 1992.
As of March 1, 1993, there had been 1285 acts of violence against abortion
clinic facilities and doctor's offices. Over 100 facilities had been completely
destroyed.
On March 10, 1993, Dr. David Gunn was assassinated by an antiabortion
demonstrator in Pensacola, Florida. The murder was tacitly condoned by
antiabortion leaders and condemned by President Clinton, in office for 6
weeks. Congressional leaders and Janet Reno, US Attorney General, called
for federal protection for abortion clinic workers.
What did Dr. Gunn represent to the antiabortion fanatic who killed him?
He represented individual dignity. He represented opportunity for women to
become full citizens and participants in our society. He represented social
change. He represented the value of the individual adult human being as
opposed to state control of individual lives and fascist totalitarianism. He
represented a thought. The man who killed Dr. Gunn tried to kill a thought.
Dr. Gunn's crime was not that he killed children, which he did not, but
that he brought liberty and health to women. He saved their lives and futures.
That's why every doctor in America who does abortions lives under a death
threat.
On August 19, 1993, an Oregon woman active in antiabortion activities
shot Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas in both arms in an attempt to
assassinate him. He returned to see his patients the next day.
In November 1993, both houses of Congress passed legislation making it
a federal crime to assault patients and health workers at abortion clinics.
REFERENCES
1. Maimonides. Oath and prayer. In: Rapport S, Wright H, eds. Great adventures in
medicine. New York: Dial Press, 1952:7-8.
2. Contis G, Hem WM. US government policy on abortion. Am J Public Health
1971;61:1038-41.
3. Hem WM, Gold M, Oakes A. Administrative incongruence and authority conflict
in four abortion clinics. Hum Organization 1977;36:376--83.
4. Hern WM. Laminaria in abortion: Use in 1368 patients in first trimester. Rocky
Mountain Med J 1975;72:390-5.
5. Hern WM, Oakes A. Multiple laminaria treatment in early midtrimester outpatient
suction abortion. Adv Planned Parenthood 1977;12:93-7.
6. Hern WM, Miller WA, Paine L, Moorhead KD. Correlation of sonographic cephalometry
with clinical assessment of fetal age following early midtrimester D & E
abortion. Adv Planned Parenthood 1978;13:14-20.
7. Hern WM. Outpatient second-trimester D & E abortion through 24 menstrual
weeks' gestation. Adv Planned Parenthood 1981;16:7-13.
8. Hem WM. Serial multiple laminaria and adjunctive urea in late out-patient dilatation
and evacuation abortion. Obstet Gynecoi 1984;63:543-9.
9. Hem WM. Abortion practice. Boulder: Alpengio Graphics, 1990. [Philadelphia: JB
Lippincott Company, 1984.]
10. Kneeland DE. Triumphant Reagan starting transition to the White House. The
New York Times 1980 Nov 7.
11. Clendinen D. President praises foes of abortion. The New York Times 1985 Jan 23.
12. Brown P. Reagan tells abortion foes he's with 'em. Rocky Mountain News 1986 Jan
23.
13. Abortion clinic and 2 doctors' offices in Pensacola, Florida bombed. The New York
Times 1984 Dec 26.
14. Hern WM. The antiabortion vigilantes. The New York Times 1984 Dec 21 [op-ed].
WHI VoL 4, No. 1 Spring 1994 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES 53
15. Brennan C. Anti-abortion leader targets Boulder clinic. Rocky Mountain News
1985 Oct 22.
16. Horsley L. Abortion opponent sues Hern. Daily Camera 1986 Jan 18.
17. Hem WM. Must Mr. Reagan tolerate abortion clinic violence? The New York
Times 1986 June 14 [op-ed].
18. Hern WM. Abortion clinics under siege. The Denver Post 1988 Nov 1 [editorial].
19. McKeegan M. Abortion politics: Mutiny in the ranks of the right. New York: Free
Press, 1992.
20. Shots shatter front window of Boulder Abortion Clinic. Daily Camera 1988 Feb 5.
21. Robey R. Shots fired at Boulder abortion clinic. The Denver Post 1988 Feb 6.
54 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994
it is timely to republish this important article.
The Same Nancy Reagan had no qualms to change her tune when it suited her.
"It was November 1994 when Ronald Reagan revealed his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease to the American public. Although some observers had suspected the former president developed Alzheimer’s while still in office — and even parsed his speeches for clues — his family insisted he was not stricken until he left the White House"
Life on the Front Lines
Warren M. Hern, MD, MPH, PhD
Director
Boulder Abortion Clinic
Boulder, Colorado
Assistant Clinical Professor
Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
University of Colorado Health Sciences Center
Denver, Colorado
T
he first abortion I performed was for a 17-year-old high school student
who told me as I talked to her before the operation that she
wanted to be a doctor and an anesthesiologist. I was terrified, and so
was she. She cried after the operation for sadness and relief. Her
tears and the immensity of the moment brought my tears. I had helped her
change her life. I was relieved that this young woman was safe to go on with
her life and realize her dreams. I felt I had found a new definition of the idea
of medicine as an act of compassion and love for one's fellow human beings,
an idea that I gained from learning about Albert Schweitzer. I had followed
that ideal by working as a medical student at a Schweitzer-inspired hospital
in the Peruvian Amazon in 1964 and later as a Peace Corps physician in Brazil.
It was a long way from Schweitzer's primitive hospitals in the steaming jungles
of Gabon and Peru to the operating room at Preterm Clinic in Washington,
DC, in 1971. But to me, this was a renewed and compelling expression
of that fundamental commitment in medicine that comes down to us from
Hippocrates, Galen, and Ambroise Par6 through Maimonides, the Jewish
physician of 12th century Spain, who wrote "... and let me only see the
suffering person, my fellow human being in pain. ''1
That moment in Preterm, the first freestanding abortion clinic in the
nation's capitol, led me to the tumultuous experience of providing abortion
services through a time of a great upheaval over this issue in our nation's
history. I was working at the time at the Office of Economic Opportunity to
change federal government restrictions on abortion funding, 2 and I began
corresponding with various abortion rights groups such as the National Association
for the Repeal of Abortion Laws and the Women's National Abortion
Action Coalition. I was privileged to hear the Supreme Court arguments
in the Vuitch, Roe v Wade, and Doe v Bolton cases and to know the doctors and
lawyers involved with the cases. Although I was keenly interested in the
public health and social justice aspects of abortion, I did not see myself providing
services or even practicing clinical medicine.
After returning to Colorado, I worked part-time as the medical director of
a family-planning training program under private contract with the US Department
of Health, Education, and Welfare. Bringing doctors in the Rocky
This article as originally published
in WHI Vol. 3, No. 3, Fall 1993 contained
unauthorized alterations
and is hereby republished in corrected
form. We regret the errors---
Warren M. Pearse, MD, Editor.
© 1994 by The Jacobs Institute of
Women's Health
1049-3867/94/$7.00
48 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994
Mountain region information about new abortion methods was part of my
work. In April 1973, I was asked if I would be interested in helping start a
nonprofit abortion clinic in Boulder. I said I would, because I now saw the
main challenge before us as implementing the Supreme Court's recent Roe v
Wade decision. The freedom to choose a safe and legal abortion meant nothing
without someone willing to do it. I thought it would be a valuable thing to do
while I was preparing to go back to graduate work in epidemiology. It allowed
me to put my beliefs about the need for this service into action. I did not feel
highly prepared, but I felt confident of my basic surgical and medical skills.
After meeting with the group in Boulder and coming to an agreement about
the project, I responded to their request that I write a program plan and set up
the clinic. I made myself medical director reporting to the executive director, who
was a sociology graduate student, and the board of directors, which was composed
of dedicated individuals who were deeply concerned with safe abor~on.
In trying to establish relationships with the Boulder medical community,
I applied for privileges at Boulder Community Hospital to be able to admit
patients with complications. The chairman of the obstetrics-gynecology staff
had been one of my attending physicians when I was in medical school in
Denver. He was deeply opposed to abortion, which I discovered at the first
obstetrics-gynecology staff meeting I attended several days after we opened
the clinic in November 1973. The conversation stopped as I entered the meeting
area that had been set off by sliding screens in the hospital cafeteria.
Several other staff doctors were also opposed to abortion. Other physicians
on the staff, who regarded abortion as a menial operation but one that must
be performed by someone specially trained in obstetrics and gynecology, did
not think someone like myself without that residency training should do
abortions. There were one or two who were silent and raised no opposition.
They proved to be my allies in a long struggle.
About this time, a local newspaper reported attacks by the newly formed
Fight the Abortion Clinic Committee (FTACC) in Boulder, which demanded
that the city council close the clinic as a "clear and present danger" to community
health. We were accused of "corrupting the youth" because the clinic
was only a block from a public junior high school and a Catholic school. I
thought of Socrates and felt solace.
The FTACC requested a special meeting of the Colorado Board of Health,
to which the FTACC alleged virtually that we were running a butcher shop.
I came to the meeting prepared with the statistics, including complication
rates and follow-up rates, for our first month's patients. I also informed the
Board that regulations requested by the FTACC would probably violate the
Doe v Bolton companion decision to Roe v Wade. The meeting was widely (and
favorably, from our point of view) covered by the regional news media. The
board decided to leave us alone.
At the November meeting of the Boulder County Medical Society, a
group of antiabortion doctors formed a committee with the purpose of getting
the society to pass a resolution asking the state and county health boards to
declare the clinic a "clear and present danger" to public health and requesting
the boards to shut down the clinic. One of my classmates from medical school
recommended an investigation of the clinic before deciding on the resolution.
On the day of the December meeting, we were visited by a delegation from
the committee, two antiabortion physicians (including the hospital obstetricsgynecology
department chairman). I took them on a guided tour and explained
our procedures. At the meeting that evening, the committee chairman,
to the astonishment and dismay of our opponents, announced that our
standards of medical care were "exemplary and commendable" and "equal to
the highest standards of medical care in the community." The resolution
opposing us was derailed by a friendly pediatrician.
WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994 HERb/: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES 49
In December, the day after the Colorado Board of Health meeting and the
week after the medical society meeting, I went to a quarterly meeting of the
Boulder Community Hospital Medical Staff, where my request for hospital
privileges would be decided. A rancorous debate over my privileges went on
for 45 minutes. The antiabortion department chief argued against my staff
appointment on several grounds. He said I lived too far away to see a sick
patient in an emergency, which was necessary before a consultant would see
her. Someone pointed out that this had not been a problem for a neurosurgeon
from Denver who had requested and received privileges the year before.
The debate ended when an obstetrician-gynecologist whom I had met, and
who was strongly pro-choice, stood up and guaranteed his consultation if I
needed it at any time. My appointment was approved by a narrow majority.
When we started in the first week of November 1973, we were the only
freestanding abortion clinic in Colorado. The pickets began. The Boulder
Valley Right-to-Life Committee sent out lurid brochures covered with pictures
of dismembered fetuses to every household in Boulder County. I began
to get threatening phone calls at home, every night I was home, all night. I
was afraid to get out of my car when I got home. I got a rifle and kept it by
my bed. Two nights a week, in order to be available for patients who might
have problems from the first day of laminaria insertion to the next day of
abortion procedure, I slept on one of the cots in the clinic's recovery room. In
the evenings, I worked on charts and wrote letters to people who referred
patients. I knew hardly anyone in Boulder and had no friends in town except
for a couple of classmates from medical school, and our lives were very
different. They had normal medical practices, and they were already leaders
in the community.
When the weekend came, I went to my mountain home to relax. It did
not seem to me that the people I met in Boulder, save those at the clinic, were
very supportive of what we were doing, although they may have been more
supportive than I knew. I just saw the hate letters and got the threatening
phone calls.
Picketers would walk in front of the clinic during work hours from time
to time. I would go out in my green scrub suit and ask them what they were
doing. Sometimes I would just make pleasant remarks. They carried signs
saying I was a murderer. It gave me some satisfaction for a time to know that
I was irritating them.
In the summer of 1974, a Denver television station decided to have a
major program on abortion set up as a debate. I debated a family doctor who
was head of the Boulder Valley Right-to-Life Committee. Each of us was
flanked by two supporters. I have no idea how many people saw the program,
but it seemed to help make me a target of opprobrium of the antiabortion
fanatics. After a subsequent debate, I had to be taken out the back door
to escape the antiabortion mob that threatened to come up over the desk
separating the speakers from the audience.
That summer of 1974, the Denver chapter of the National Organization
for Women held an outdoor rally at East High School in Denver to honor
those who had helped women's rights and progress. I was one of these they
chose to honor.
At the rally, the antiabortion fanatics showed up shouting my name and
calling me a murderer. They had numerous signs showing my name and
various descriptions of me, none of them flattering. As I began to speak, they
began to shout. I spoke above them. It was a little frightening, it was exhilarating,
and I was all but overcome with emotion. There was really something
fearsome about people who hated me so much and who would go after me in
a personal way. I spoke of the need for safe and legal abortions for the sake
of women and their families. I said we would not return to back-alley abor50
HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994
tions for the same reasons that we would not go back to slavery, public
flogging, and the bubonic plague. That barbaric time in history is over. I felt
defiant. But I also felt afraid of what those people might try to do to me. It was
a defining moment.
At the end of the first year of operation, it was clear that those who held
power at Boulder Valley Clinic and I had very different ideas about what we
were doing and why. 3 They wanted no one person in charge of the clinic nor
did they want a medical director. Among other things, they abolished my job
and title but not my responsibilities. After long weeks of painful debate, I
resigned.
I felt by this time that providing abortion services was the most important
thing I could do in medicine. I took my last week's salary and used it as a
deposit on a small office space, being careful not to tell the lease manager that
I planned to do abortions. I knew that revealing this would make it impossible
to find office space in Boulder. I went to a local bank to look for help. The
banker expressed the view that my former employer, the abortion clinic, had
brought a lot of "undesirables" into town. ! didn't know if he thought or
realized that I was one of the "undesirable" elements to which he referred,
but I did not go to pains to explain to him the objectives of my medical
practice. I borrowed $7000, remodeled the office, and saw three patients on
the second anniversary of Roe v Wade. Four years later, when the doctors
upstairs moved to their own new building, I took over their space and, with
more loans, I bought the building so I could not be kicked out later by an antiabortion
owner.
Now we faced the street across from the hospital. The picketers began to
make regular visits to my office. By this time, I had to change my home phone
number and have it unlisted.
On one occasion, I went out to the parking lot to write down the license
numbers of cars whose owners were picketing and harassing my patients.
One of the picketers got in his car and tried to run over me in the parking lot.
At the time, I was running about 5 miles a day and I could escape the car's
path, but it was frightening because I could see him coming after me. I
reported this incident to the Boulder police, but there was no prosecution.
The man was a regular demonstrator at my office.
The patients came from all over--first Colorado, then all of North America.
Their stories were compelling. We gave each patient careful individual
attention. I found that getting to know the patients and their families was the
most rewarding part of the experience, and it was gratifying to see what a
positive event this was for them in their lives. Each day, each patient, some
more than others, convinced me of the absolute need for the service we were
providing and the need for it to be as high a quality as we could make it.
We did not just provide a medical service. We had to solve important
problems for individuals and families that frequently had nowhere else to
turn. We dealt with problems of acute emotional need and suffering, acute
family and social disorganization, frequently under circumstances of severe
economic deprivation and social injustice, individual grief and loss, occasional
psychiatric disorder, and wrenching religious and philosophical issues,
all in a context of public controversy.
In my own way, I worked to find better ways of doing abortions safely,
especially second-trimester abortions, because they seemed hard to get and
more dangerous than early abortions. 4-8 In 1984, my textbook, Abortion Practice,
was published. The publisher was deluged with hate mail and threats of
boycott. In 1989, the publisher destroyed more than 300 of the remaining 350
books and took it out of print. The next year, I formed my own publishing
company and published the book in a softcover edition to keep it in print. 9
The attacks on abortion rights had begun to escalate from civilized deWHI
Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES 51
bates to personal and legislative attacks. Colorado was led by a strong prochoice
Governor, Dick Lamm, who had successfully introduced the nation's
first abortion reform law and saw it passed into law in 1967. But the Colorado
legislature was increasingly controlled by those who were not pro-choice.
On November 5, 1980, the day after his election, Ronald Reagan held his
first press conference. The very first thing he said was that he intended to
make abortion illegal. 1° After he took office and lent the power of the Presidency
to the antiabortion fanatics, the violent attacks on clinics increased
dramatically. 11-13 The demonstrators were literally on our doorsteps. Threats
on my life and harassment of all kinds increased. The fetus became a fetish
object for the antiabortion fanatics, a moral symbol that justified their actions.
Our only option for taking the high moral ground was to place our own
lives and bodies on the line. We must risk our lives for our cause by continuing
to provide safe abortion services in the face of these threats and attempts
to intimidate. Only our own moral courage in doing what we see as right and
ethical could be an effective counterpoise to the antiabortion movement.
By December 1984, two dozen abortion clinics had been completely destroyed
in that year alone. The head of the FBI, William Webster, declared
that violence against abortion clinics was "not terrorism" because the FBI
didn't know the identities of the perpetrators. 14
On October 19, 1985, a rock was thrown through the front window of my
clinic, hurled by a follower of Joseph Scheidler, head of the Chicago Pro-Life
Action League of Chicago, who was due to arrive in Boulder the following
week. Scheidler, whose 6'4" bulk towered over me, told me to my face in 1984
that he was coming to Boulder to "shut down" my clinic. He was now about
to attempt to deliver on his threat. He was scheduled to speak at the University
of Colorado at the invitation of a right-wing group and to work with the
local Right-to-Life group to close my office. 15
On the following Monday, the glass company was due to replace the
plywood covering the empty frame with new glass. I cancelled the repair job,
and when I got to the office, I made a hand-lettered sign, "THIS WINDOW
WAS BROKEN BY THOSE WHO HATE FREEDOM." The sign was at
Scheidler's back as he spoke to the television cameras that afternoon.
Several months later, I was sued for slander by the antiabortion groups for
publicly stating that they had created "an atmosphere of violence and confrontation,
''16 but I was defended free of charge by some of the best constitutional
lawyers in Colorado, and the antiabortion groups had to pay attorney's fees.
The connection between attacks on abortion by Ronald Reagan and other
high officials and antiabortion harassment and terrorism were increasingly
plain for anyone to see, 17-19 but it did not seem to be of much concern to the
public or to opposition political leaders. On February 6, 1988, the day Ronald
Reagan announced the "gag rule" and the day after Pat Robertson spoke to
the New Hampshire legislature and accused Planned Parenthood of trying to
create a "master race" by providing abortion services, five bullets were fired
through the front windows of my waiting room with a high-powered rifle.
2°'21 The next day, I held a press conference on my front lawn to denounce
the criminals who did it, and offered a reward of $5000 for information leading
to their arrest. We installed bulletproof windows and electronic security
systems at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.
The gunshots fired into my office occurred in the same week that my
divorce was final. The two events were not unrelated, because the antiabortion
harassment had a disastrous effect on my marriage of 6 years. The juxtaposition
of the two events did nothing positive for my self-esteem.
On September 25, 1988, while campaigning for the Presidency, George
Bush expressed the view that doctors who do abortions should be imprisoned.
He was elected by a landslide.
52 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994
On October 10, 1990, Joseph Scheidler's prot6gG Randall Terry, national
head of Operation Rescue, stood with his followers in front of my clinic and
prayed for my death. CBS "60 Minutes" showed a tape of Terry's prayer on
their broadcast concerning the "Lambs of Christ" on February 2, 1992.
As of March 1, 1993, there had been 1285 acts of violence against abortion
clinic facilities and doctor's offices. Over 100 facilities had been completely
destroyed.
On March 10, 1993, Dr. David Gunn was assassinated by an antiabortion
demonstrator in Pensacola, Florida. The murder was tacitly condoned by
antiabortion leaders and condemned by President Clinton, in office for 6
weeks. Congressional leaders and Janet Reno, US Attorney General, called
for federal protection for abortion clinic workers.
What did Dr. Gunn represent to the antiabortion fanatic who killed him?
He represented individual dignity. He represented opportunity for women to
become full citizens and participants in our society. He represented social
change. He represented the value of the individual adult human being as
opposed to state control of individual lives and fascist totalitarianism. He
represented a thought. The man who killed Dr. Gunn tried to kill a thought.
Dr. Gunn's crime was not that he killed children, which he did not, but
that he brought liberty and health to women. He saved their lives and futures.
That's why every doctor in America who does abortions lives under a death
threat.
On August 19, 1993, an Oregon woman active in antiabortion activities
shot Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kansas in both arms in an attempt to
assassinate him. He returned to see his patients the next day.
In November 1993, both houses of Congress passed legislation making it
a federal crime to assault patients and health workers at abortion clinics.
REFERENCES
1. Maimonides. Oath and prayer. In: Rapport S, Wright H, eds. Great adventures in
medicine. New York: Dial Press, 1952:7-8.
2. Contis G, Hem WM. US government policy on abortion. Am J Public Health
1971;61:1038-41.
3. Hem WM, Gold M, Oakes A. Administrative incongruence and authority conflict
in four abortion clinics. Hum Organization 1977;36:376--83.
4. Hern WM. Laminaria in abortion: Use in 1368 patients in first trimester. Rocky
Mountain Med J 1975;72:390-5.
5. Hern WM, Oakes A. Multiple laminaria treatment in early midtrimester outpatient
suction abortion. Adv Planned Parenthood 1977;12:93-7.
6. Hern WM, Miller WA, Paine L, Moorhead KD. Correlation of sonographic cephalometry
with clinical assessment of fetal age following early midtrimester D & E
abortion. Adv Planned Parenthood 1978;13:14-20.
7. Hern WM. Outpatient second-trimester D & E abortion through 24 menstrual
weeks' gestation. Adv Planned Parenthood 1981;16:7-13.
8. Hem WM. Serial multiple laminaria and adjunctive urea in late out-patient dilatation
and evacuation abortion. Obstet Gynecoi 1984;63:543-9.
9. Hem WM. Abortion practice. Boulder: Alpengio Graphics, 1990. [Philadelphia: JB
Lippincott Company, 1984.]
10. Kneeland DE. Triumphant Reagan starting transition to the White House. The
New York Times 1980 Nov 7.
11. Clendinen D. President praises foes of abortion. The New York Times 1985 Jan 23.
12. Brown P. Reagan tells abortion foes he's with 'em. Rocky Mountain News 1986 Jan
23.
13. Abortion clinic and 2 doctors' offices in Pensacola, Florida bombed. The New York
Times 1984 Dec 26.
14. Hern WM. The antiabortion vigilantes. The New York Times 1984 Dec 21 [op-ed].
WHI VoL 4, No. 1 Spring 1994 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES 53
15. Brennan C. Anti-abortion leader targets Boulder clinic. Rocky Mountain News
1985 Oct 22.
16. Horsley L. Abortion opponent sues Hern. Daily Camera 1986 Jan 18.
17. Hem WM. Must Mr. Reagan tolerate abortion clinic violence? The New York
Times 1986 June 14 [op-ed].
18. Hern WM. Abortion clinics under siege. The Denver Post 1988 Nov 1 [editorial].
19. McKeegan M. Abortion politics: Mutiny in the ranks of the right. New York: Free
Press, 1992.
20. Shots shatter front window of Boulder Abortion Clinic. Daily Camera 1988 Feb 5.
21. Robey R. Shots fired at Boulder abortion clinic. The Denver Post 1988 Feb 6.
54 HERN: LIFE ON THE FRONT LINES WHI Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 1994
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