Warren Hern on second trimester abortions

Dr. Warren Hern does 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions at his clinic in Boulder. This is from an interview:

Q. Does it bother you that a second trimester fetus so closely resembles a baby?

A: I really don’t think about it. I don’t have a problem with believing the fetus is a fertilized egg. Sure it becomes more physically developed but it lacks emotional development. It doesn’t have the mental capacity for self-awareness. It’s never been an ethical dilemma for me. For people for whom that is an ethical dilemma, this certainly wouldn’t be a field they’d want to go into. Many of our patients have ethical dilemmas about abortion. I don’t feel it’s my role as a physician to tell her she should not have an abortion because of her ethical feelings. …Facing the situation of abortion is a part of that passage through life for some women–how they resolve that is their decision. …it. My role is to provide a service and, to a limited degree, help women understand themselves when they make their decision. I’m not to tell them what’s right or wrong.

Discharging the Committee on the Judiciary from Further Consideration Of the President’s Veto of HR 1833, Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 1995

September 9, 1996 Capital Words, A Project of the Sunlight Foundation volume 142 , number 130

http://capitolwords.org/date/1996/09/19/H10608-2_discharging-the-committee-on-the-judiciary-from-fu/