Broken windows into abortion doctor's life

BOULDER, COLO. — At the Boulder Abortion Clinic, Dr. Warren Hern leaves no window uncovered.

Full-length blinds shroud the bulletproof entryway; in his office, vinyl shades block a small window.

This is one of the facts of Hern's life -- no windows, ever. That was how Dr. Barnett Slepian's killer shot him in upstate New York, through a kitchen window. Slepian, like Hern, performed abortions.

"I can't sit in front of an open window. The shades have to be drawn," Hern said.

After Slepian's shooting in 1998, Hern predicted another would follow. "Will I get to live out my life?" he asked in a newspaper column in 2001. ". . . Who's next?"

On Sunday, that turned out to be George Tiller, a Kansas physician who was shot dead in a church foyer. Like Hern, Tiller was one of the few doctors in the U.S. known to perform abortions late in the second trimester through the third trimester of pregnancy. The two also were friends -- "I loved him," Hern said -- who hiked and skied together in the Colorado mountains.

This week at his modest office, a somber Hern fielded calls from reporters as he juggled patients and adjusted to the presence of U.S. marshals assigned to protect him. Though Hern did not discuss the details of his security, several well-muscled men hovered in the hallway.

In the hushed, almost somber, waiting room, several women sat, reading pamphlets about the procedure they were about to undergo. One man held a woman's purse in his lap as she studied a brochure. They didn't talk. Another couple whispered to one another. Tables offered facial tissues and free condoms, while brightly striped fish swam in an aquarium -- a spot of color in the room with white walls and worn teal carpet.

On the door, two signs distinguished this clinic from countless other doctors' offices. One prohibited cellphones or cameras. Another admonished: "For your safety, do not open this door for anyone who has not accompanied you."

Hern may have grown accustomed long ago to working under such conditions, but that did not diminish his shock or grief over Tiller's death. He learned of the killing when Tiller's wife, who was at the church when her husband was shot, called Hern to tell him. "I liked the world a lot more before Sunday morning," he said.