Warren Martin Hern (born 1938) is an American physician best known for performing late terminations of pregnancy. [1] In 1973, he founded Boulder Abortion Clinic in Boulder, Colorado. Hern was a founding member of the National Abortion Federation, and authored Abortion Practice, a comprehensive text on operating and evaluating abortion facilities. He and doctors LeRoy Carhart, Shelley Sella, and Susan Robinson were the subject of the 2013 documentary After Tiller about the four providers openly advertising later abortions in the United States after the 2009 assassination of George Tiller.
Hern earned his B.A. at the University of Colorado in 1961. He triple-majored in Speech, Anthropology, and Chemistry. He attended medical school at the University of Colorado, earning his M.D. in 1965, after which he served as a Peace Corps doctor in northeast Brazil for four years. He earned his M.P.H. degree at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health in 1971, and his Ph.D. in epidemiology from the same school in 1988.
He has been board certified in Preventive Medicine since 1978.
In 1973, Hern was asked to help found a private, non-profit abortion clinic in Boulder, Colorado. After his position was eliminated, Hern entered into private practice, creating the Boulder Abortion Clinic in 1975. [2] [3]
On January 22 in 2025, on the fiftieth anniversary of opening his own private clinic, Hern retired from practicing medicine. His practice will continue to offer late-term abortion services. [4]
Hern holds the following academic appointments [5]
Hern travels regularly to Peru, where he works as a volunteer providing medical care to the Shipibo tribe. [6]
Hern's clinic has been the target of numerous vandalisms and threats, including gunshots fired through his office window. [7] He has been stalked and threatened. [8] His family has been threatened as well. [9] [10]
Hern expressed outrage over the May 31, 2009 killing of George Tiller, a doctor who offered similar services, in Wichita. [11] In the aftermath of Tiller's murder, Hern's clinic has continued to receive threats. [12]
Henekh "Henry" Morgentaler, was a Polish-born Canadian physician, and abortion rights advocate who fought numerous legal battles aimed at expanding abortion rights in Canada. As a Jewish youth during World War II, Morgentaler was imprisoned at the Łódź Ghetto and later at the Dachau concentration camp.
The Doctor of Psychology is a professional doctoral degree intended to prepare graduates for careers that apply scientific knowledge of psychology and deliver empirically based service to individuals, groups and organizations. Earning the degree was originally completed through one of two established training models for clinical psychology. However, Psy.D. programs are no longer limited to Clinical Psychology as several universities and professional schools have begun to award professional doctorates in Business Psychology, Organizational Development, Forensic Psychology, Counseling Psychology, and School Psychology.
Christian terrorism, a form of religious terrorism, refers to terrorist acts which are committed by groups or individuals who profess Christian motivations or goals. Christian terrorists justify their violent tactics through their interpretation of the Bible and Christianity, in accordance with their own objectives and worldview.
Phillip D. Kline is a former American attorney who served as a Kansas state legislator, district attorney of Johnson County, and Kansas Attorney General. Kline, a member of the Republican Party, lost re-election as attorney general to Democratic challenger Paul J. Morrison in 2006. Kline was appointed by the Republican County Central Committee to fill the vacancy left by Morrison's election as Kansas Attorney General, becoming district attorney of Johnson County on the day he left office as attorney general and essentially switching jobs with Morrison. Kline then ran for a full term as district attorney, but was defeated in the 2008 Republican primary.
Army of God (AOG) is an American Christian terrorist organization, members of which have perpetrated anti-abortion violence. According to the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security's joint Terrorism Knowledge Base, the Army of God is an active underground terrorist organization in the United States. In addition to numerous property crimes, the group has committed acts of kidnapping, attempted murder, and murder. The AOG was formed in 1982 and, while sharing a common ideology and tactics, the group's members claim that they rarely communicate with each other; this is known more formally as leaderless resistance. The group forbids those who wish to "take action against babykilling abortionists" from discussing their plans with anyone in advance.
Anti-abortion violence is violence committed against individuals and organizations that perform abortions or provide abortion counseling. Incidents of violence have included destruction of property, including vandalism; crimes against people, including kidnapping, stalking, assault, attempted murder, and murder; and crimes affecting both people and property, as well as arson and terrorism, such as bombings.
Operation Rescue, the operating name of Youth Ministries Inc., is an American anti-abortion organization. The organization originated in California and is now based in Kansas.
On March 10, 1993, Dr. David Gunn was fatally shot by anti-abortion extremist Michael Frederick Griffin in Pensacola, Florida. It was the first documented killing of an obstetrics and gynaecology doctor where the stated intention of the perpetrator was to prevent a doctor from providing abortion care in an act of anti-abortion violence in the United States.
Dr. David N. Sundwall was a primary care physician and served as the executive director of the Utah Department of Health from January 2005 to January 2011.
George Richard Tiller was an American physician and abortion provider from Wichita, Kansas. He gained national attention as the medical director of Women's Health Care Services, which, at the time, was one of only three abortion clinics nationwide that provided late-term abortions.
Life Dynamics Inc. (LDI) is an anti-abortion organization founded by Mark Crutcher in 1992. It is headquartered in Denton, Texas.
Rachelle Ranae "Shelley" Shannon is an American anti-abortion extremist who was convicted in a Kansas state court for the attempted murder of George Tiller by shooting him in his car in Wichita, Kansas in 1993. She was also convicted in U.S. federal court for ten attacks at abortion clinics using arson or acid. At her sentencing in U.S. District Court in 1995, the presiding judge described Shannon as a terrorist and agreed with prosecutors that she was a threat even from behind bars. She served her sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Waseca, Minnesota and was released in November 2018.
On May 31, 2009, George Tiller, an American physician from Wichita, Kansas, who was one of the few doctors in the United States to perform late terminations of pregnancy, was murdered by Scott Roeder, an anti-abortion extremist. Tiller was shot to death at pointblank range during a Sunday morning service at his church, Reformation Lutheran Church, where he was serving as an usher. Tiller had previously survived an murder attempt in 1993 when Shelley Shannon shot him in the arms.
William Floyd Nathaniel Harrison was an American obstetrician who delivered 6,000 babies and then switched to abortions, performing the procedure an estimated 20,000 times in his career. He became one of the only doctors in Northwest Arkansas to provide this service to women, as other physicians stopped offering to perform abortions. His Fayetteville Women's Clinic was frequently picketed and blocked by anti-abortion protesters.
Kermit Barron Gosnell is an American serial killer and former abortion doctor. He provided illegal late-term abortions at his clinic in West Philadelphia. Gosnell was convicted of the murders of three infants who were born alive after using drugs to induce labor, the manslaughter of one woman during an abortion procedure, and of several other abortion- and drug-related crimes. Staff at Gosnell's clinic testified that there were hundreds of infants born alive during abortion procedures, and subsequently killed by Gosnell.
After Tiller is a 2013 documentary film directed by Martha Shane and Lana Wilson that follows the only four remaining doctors in the United States who openly perform abortions in the third trimester of pregnancy. In 2015, After Tiller won the News and Documentary Emmy Award for Best Documentary. The title of the film refers to George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions and was murdered in 2009.
Theodore Shulman is an American abortion-rights activist who threatened anti-abortion activists with violence. He proclaimed himself the "first pro-choice terrorist".
Gurumukh Sajanmal Sainani is an Indian general physician, medical researcher, medical writer and an emeritus Professor of the National Academy of Medical Sciences. He is a former director of the All India Heart Foundation and the incumbent director of Jaslok Hospital, Mumbai. He is a recipient of the highest Indian award in the medical category, Dr. B. C. Roy Award, from the Medical Council of India and the rank of Honorary Brigadier from the President of India. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian award of the Padma Shri in 2000.
A/Prof Eugen Molodysky OAM, MMBS is an academic and medical practitioner in preventive medicine and translational research. His research has been published in peer reviewed journals over the last 30 years. His clinical work has contributed to the early identification of HIV/AIDS in the 1980s epidemic in Australia.
Abortion in Kansas is legal. Kansas law allows for an abortion up to 20 weeks post-fertilization. After that point, only in cases of life or severely compromised physical health may an abortion be performed. In July 2024, the Kansas Supreme Court struck down two abortion restrictions.