Abortion in the Age of Unreason: A Doctor’s Account of Caring for Women Before and After Roe V. Wade

This vivid account by a nationally prominent doctor reports the daily challenges of offering and receiving abortion services in a volatile political and social atmosphere. In stories from the front lines - from protecting patients and staff from protesters’ attacks to the dangers to women of restricted access to abortion services, and the pertinent findings of his remote research in Latin America, Hern’s book is strikingly detailed just as it exposes the needs of women and the U. S. national interest. Dr. Hern - an abortion specialist, researcher, scholar, and highly visible public advocate -shows how abortion saves women’s lives given the many risks that arise during pregnancy - remarkably more than most people realize. He points to political and national solutions to reverse a reawakened crisis that now threatens democracy. Throughout the book, Dr. Hern shows how the current emergency was largely created by political actors who have exploited and distorted the abortion issue to increase and consolidate their power.

A vital component of women’s health care, the crisis over abortion is not new. Yet the reversal of Roe v. Wade and the steady accumulation of power by America’s right wing has put the issue at a level of urgency and national prominence not seen since the days before legalization. Women’s need for safe abortion services will continue as the struggle to secure their rights intensifies. This book is about that struggle during what has evolved, over the last 50 years, to an Age of Unreason.

Warren M. Hern, M. D., is known to the public through his many appearances on CNN, Rachel Maddow/MSNBC; Sixty Minutes, and in the pages of The Atlantic Magazine, New York Times, Washington Post, and dozens more media. A scientist, Hern wrote about the need for safe abortion services before the 1973 Roe V. Wade decision and was present at the first Supreme Court arguments. In his research and medical work, he pioneered since 1973 the modern safe practice of early and late abortion in his highly influential books and scholarship. A tireless national activist for women’s reproductive rights, he is an adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and holds a clinical appointment in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Colorado medical center. He holds doctorates in medicine and epidemiology. Dr. Hern received the Christopher Tietze Humanitarian Award and awards from the American Public Health Association for his scientific contributions and defense of reproductive freedom. He lives in Boulder with his wife and son.