Late-term abortionist troubled by “disdain” of other doctors

In 2009, Esquire reporter John H. Richardson wrote an article about late-term abortionist Warren Hern after touring Hern’s Boulder, Colorado, abortion facility. Richardson observed abortion workers going about their business and interviewed Hern at length.  Since most abortionists tend to try and hide the actual carnage in their facilities from the press, it is probable that Hern didn’t show Richardson an abortion; at any rate, there is no description of a late term abortion procedure in Richardson’s article.

This is not surprising. After all, Hern does abortions all the way up until birth and even advertises it on his website. An eyewitness description of one of these abortions would be bound to turn the stomach of an editor or, in fact, any sane person.

Dismembering perfectly formed babies or injecting their hearts with poison does not faze Hern, but there is one thing that does bother him: that many doctors view him and other abortionists – to put it politely – in a very negative light.

Richardson’s article says: 

Nothing pains [Hern] more than the disdain of other doctors. Sometimes the young ones ask to come in for an afternoon so they can learn to make a little money while their careers get started–they think it’s as simple as changing a tire. There’s no sense that this is an important operation that has to be done well, that a person’s life depends on it. But let’s face it, abortion is the lowest-status activity in medicine. That’s why they always call their clinics Family Planning Centers or Women’s Wellness Facilities or some crap like that.

So the career abortionist is offended by the young upstarts that dabble in the abortion business solely to make money. They are certainly not alone in their pursuit of profit – see these quotes from abortionists on how profitable their jobs are.

Hern makes a very astute observation when he says that abortion facilities never have names that include the word “abortion.” Even when they are advertising for patients to come in and abort, and when everyone in the area knows what they do, they leave the word “abortion” out of their names and off their signs.  Instead, they use euphemisms.

The refusal of abortion centers to name what they do is a sign of the intense stigma surrounding abortion.

Hern is not the first abortionist to talk about the disdain other doctors feel towards those in the abortion industry.  For example, over 20 years ago, abortionist Morris Wortman wrote:

Abortion has failed to escape its back alley associations… [It is the] dark side of medicine…

Even when abortion became legal, it was still considered dirty.

Another late-term abortionist, Dr. Susan Robinson, said the following:

If you do abortions, it is very hard to get the privilege to work in a hospital, because they don’t like abortion providers…. Being an abortion provider is very stigmatized. Other doctors look down on you and think of you as like the lowest of the low.

Another abortionist said in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

We’re perceived as being dirty, underhanded, the lowest echelon of the medical practice.

Why are abortionists viewed so negatively by other doctors? Doctors take an oath to heal, not to kill. Although many doctors may be pro-choice and may even refer patients to practicing abortionists every now and then, few doctors want to do abortions. They don’t want to dismember preborn babies and then have to examine their remains to make sure an arm or leg wasn’t missed by the instruments.  Of course, doctors see gruesome things in their practices all the time. But there is a difference between seeing the suffering of patients with horrible injuries who you are trying to treat or save, and seeing the blood and gore left over from a child you just killed. Destroying lives and saving lives are so diametrically opposed that it isn’t surprising many healers look down on abortionists.

On top of this, Hern is in bad company as an abortionist. Operation Rescue’s website, AbortionDocs, tracks abortion malpractice and has thousands of documents on botched abortions and malpractice lawsuits. The sheer amount of incompetence, sadism, and neglect abortionists have inflicted on their patients is staggering. We all know about Kermit Gosnell, but there are others as bad as him out there. Is it surprising that real doctors find abortionists guilty by association?

Whether it’s because abortionists kill rather than heal or because abortion malpractice is so common, or even because of the way society views abortion, real doctors look down on abortionists – and abortionists know it.