Mementos are positioned at a memorial outdoors Girls’s Well being Care Providers owned by Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, Kan., Tuesday, June 2, 2009, after he was fatally shot throughout church providers Sunday. Credit score: AP Photograph/Charlie Riedel, File
To fellow vacationers, Hannah Brehm seemingly seemed like she was taking a belated babymoon properly into her third trimester.
However she and her husband had obtained a crushing analysis: Their child’s mind was not creating correctly, upending their wished being pregnant. Medical consultants warned shifting ahead would seemingly imply her son would know solely ache and struggling. The Minnesota couple wasn’t going to take that likelihood.
As a substitute, they went to Colorado, the place for many years the Boulder Abortion Clinic served as a useful resource for girls who seemed to terminate their pregnancies within the second or third trimester due to medical causes, like Brehm, or different circumstances.
After greater than 50 years, that clinic quietly closed final month, leaving the U.S. with only a handful that provide abortions after 28 weeks into being pregnant—many on a case-by-case foundation.
The 87-year-old clinic founder, Dr. Warren Hern, says he’s deeply upset: “It became impossible to continue, but closing is one of the most painful decisions of my life.”
Anti-abortion advocates have celebrated the closure, calling it a step ahead in defending moms and unborn youngsters. Whereas the overwhelming majority of abortions happen within the first trimester, former sufferers and reproductive rights advocates fear in regards to the affect of shedding an already slim useful resource.
“Chances are it’s not gonna happen to you. And I hope it doesn’t happen to someone else that you love, but it is happening,” Brehm mentioned, reflecting on her expertise in 2022.
Dr. Warren Hern sits in his now-closed clinic Wednesday, Could 7, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. Credit score: AP Photograph/David Zalubowski
Causes for late abortions
Federal information reveals simply 1% of abortions come after 21 weeks of being pregnant, however consultants imagine that quantity is increased as a result of some states, together with California, do not give the feds their abortion statistics.
The explanations for late abortions differ. Some diagnoses like anatomy abnormalities or genetic problems cannot occur till after 20 weeks or later into being pregnant. Different ladies might not discover out they’re pregnant till after the primary trimester. Hundreds of thousands of girls stay in a state with a strict abortion ban.
Sarah Watkins traveled from Georgia to the Boulder clinic in 2019 simply earlier than 25 weeks into her being pregnant after studying her child had a situation referred to as trisomy 18, an additional chromosome that made it seemingly the infant would die in utero or shortly after beginning. A genetic blood screening at 10 weeks beforehand dismissed possibilities of the situation, however an in depth ultrasound within the second trimester proved in any other case.
“You can do everything right, by the book, but you still can’t find out certain things until that ultrasound at 20 weeks and sometimes even later,” she mentioned. “And as a mom, I did not want her to feel a single moment of hurt or suffering or pain or discomfort. That’s why I made the decision.”
Watkins described the medical care she obtained on the Hern’s clinic attentive and caring. Nonetheless, she mentioned touring to a spot with a number of layers of bulletproof glass and a throng of protesters was a traumatic expertise.
Hern’s attain by means of the a long time
For years, Hern was the one supplier within the U.S. to supply later abortions, beginning in 1973 and creating specialised strategies and even innovating sure instruments to make sure higher well being outcomes. However providing abortions late in being pregnant got here with dangers.
Anti-abortion protesters Jean Bullock, left, and Sue Dunn, display outdoors Deliberate Parenthood Nice Rivers, Dec. 5, 2024, at in St. Louis, Mo. Credit score: Laurie Skrivan/St. Louis Submit-Dispatch through AP, File
He and his medical workforce obtained fixed dying threats. Somebody shot by means of the home windows of the clinic 5 instances in 1988. 5 of Hern’s colleagues who supplied comparable providers have been assassinated all through his profession, together with the 2009 slaying of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas.
Hern mentioned the work was at all times value it. He recalled one among his first sufferers who could not imagine cleanliness of his working room; she beforehand had an unlawful abortion that left her humiliated and frightened.
“She looked up at me and said ‘Please, don’t ever stop doing this,'” Hern mentioned. “So I didn’t. Until now.”
In the long run, monetary points made it nearly inconceivable to function the clinic. Hern mentioned sufferers more and more have been having hassle paying for the process, which hovers round $10,000 and is commonly not lined by insurance coverage. Longtime private donors have been additionally dwindling.
Hern labored with physicians over the a long time, hopeful that someday they might take over his clinic, however that by no means labored out.
“I had to make a decision really, you know, sort of on the basis of the situation at the moment that we couldn’t continue,” he mentioned. “It was very, very painful. I see this as my personal failure.”
Dr. Warren Hern stands in his now-closed clinic Wednesday, Could 7, 2025, in Boulder, Colo. Credit score: AP Photograph/David Zalubowski
Suppliers and sufferers w
onder what’s subsequent
In keeping with the Later Abortion Initiative by Ibis Reproductive Well being, fewer than 20 clinics present abortions after 24 weeks into being pregnant within the U.S.—although that quantity is not thought of complete and excludes hospitals and a handful of different clinics for safety causes.
At present, the group lists three clinics—in New Mexico, Maryland and Washington, D.C.—that present providers after 28 weeks. 5 others—in Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Washington state—will think about sufferers relying on doctor suggestions or fetal and maternal circumstances.
“I think Dr. Hern has been the torchbearer for abortion leaders in pregnancy,” mentioned Jane Armstrong, a licensed therapist in Texas who now helps assist households who’ve terminated pregnancies for medical causes. She ended her personal being pregnant round 21 weeks in 2021.
“Who will pick up the mantle? We really do need a new torchbearer right now.”
A dozen states have bans on abortion in any respect levels of being pregnant and 4 extra have bans that kick in after about six weeks. Abortion fund organizations, which assist individuals prepare and pay abortions, say the bans imply the next demand for later abortions. When individuals journey, it usually takes extra time to make appointments, collect the cash wanted and to catch a flight or take a drive lots of of miles away.
“Every time a clinic closes, it does impact everybody and what kinds of care they give,” mentioned Anna Rupani, government director of Fund Texas Alternative.
Shortly after the nation’s highest court docket overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, an all-trimester abortion clinic opened in Maryland—a partnership between licensed nurse-midwife Morgan Nuzzo and Dr. Diane Horvath, an OB-GYN who focuses on advanced household planning.
They mentioned they’re fearful about many issues in relation to reproductive rights, together with the Trump administration’s transfer to curtail prosecutions in opposition to individuals accused of blocking entry to abortion clinics and reproductive well being facilities. However they’re additionally buoyed by the constant overwhelming variety of purposes from suppliers each time they publish a place, and mentioned that the variety of clinics that provide later abortions has gone up since Roe was overturned.
“This type of care is still available,” Horvath mentioned. “It’s more rare than it was a couple weeks ago, but we want to say loud and proud that our doors are still open and there are other places still open.”
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Late abortions are uncommon. The US simply misplaced a clinic that supplied the process for over 50 years (2025, Could 12)
retrieved 12 Could 2025
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