April 24, 2013

If Gosnell is not convicted...

... it will help the pro-life movement.

71 comments:

edutcher said...

I don't know about that, but this is what the anti-abortion movement has been talking about for 40 years.

It's a real vindication.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

An Obamacare outcome.

samanthasmom said...

You betcha it will. Pro-choice groups should hoping he gets the book thrown at him.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The gruesomeness of the thing is the only thing at this point that can turn the tide.

Ergo the scant coverage.

Brian Brown said...

Nonsense.

His story has already helped the pro-life movement by demonstrating the horrors of partial birth abortion.

And, the shaming of the mainstream media regarding coverage of the trial.

The pro-life movement gets traction by pointing out that some of what this man did is legal.

If he is not convicted, the story moves away from abortion and to the ineptness of the government prosecutors (the media will rush to pick up this "what went wrong" angle to avoid talking about abortion).

Alex said...

If he is acquitted, that will create the equation:

pro choice = infanticide

in the minds of swing voters.

Cruel neutrality at it's absolute best.

TWM said...

It won't make a difference. Respect for life is moving from little to almost nil now. When death panels are coming how is anyone or anything going to stem the tide of abortions. Abort a fetus or snap the neck of a unsuccessfully aborted baby - it's all the same now.

TWM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Revenant said...

I don't see his conviction or acquittal having any impact one way or the other.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

"If Gosnell is not convicted..." It would also help the pro 2nd amendment absolutes?

ab·so·lute

Not qualified or diminished in any way; total: "absolute secrecy".

Noun

A value or principle regarded as universally valid or viewed without relation to other things.

Synonyms

utter - complete - perfect - total - sheer - outright

Big Mike said...

The whole point of making abortion legal is to make it safe. I don't see much difference between the quality of care in Gosnell's clinic and the quality of care in back alleys with rusty coat hangers.

Anonymous said...

Either way, it has helped to bring the ethical question of partial birth abortion/ late term abortion to the forefront. It may force Democrats to rethink their stance on this issue, and that would be a good thing.

Birches said...

How could he NOT be convicted?

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Also Big Mike is right, the conditions at the clinic need to meet conditions of medical clinics and this hopefully will ensure they are not neglected by health inspections no matter WHO pushes for them to not be inspected.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The whole point of making abortion legal is to make it safe. I don't see much difference between the quality of care in Gosnell's clinic and the quality of care in back alleys with rusty coat hangers.

The magnificence of this simple statement cannot be overstated.

edutcher said...

Big Mike said...

The whole point of making abortion legal is to make it safe.

The feminazis told people 40 years ago, they wanted it safe, legal, and rare.

They only wanted legal.

Methadras said...

I don't see how that's possible. What it will do is incense the pro-life movement and if you think that will help, then I'd say you would be wrong. Especially considering the utter willful blindness on the part of the media to totally and completely ignore this case, they would, in the case of an acquittal become indignantly vindicated in their leftist pro-choice screed. They would trot out all of the leftist imagery from the leftist warehouse of ideological mantras by pointing to the example of Gosnell as being the victim of a pro-life witch hunt, that pro-lifers are kooks and wackos, that they are e-vil conservatives hicks and hayseed and so on and so forth.

All the while Gosnell would slink away into obscurity or go back to his two-tiered treatment system of treating black women who wanted their late term abortions with disdain while he treated the paying white customers with the white glove treatment.

However, professor, it is clearly easy to see through your gossamer thin attempt at troll baiting. You've failed and you aren't very good at it.

Methadras said...

Big Mike said...

The whole point of making abortion legal is to make it safe.


Wrong. Legality isn't a function of safety. Many legal activities are inherently unsafe. The whole point of making abortion legal was to make it legal so that the horror stories of back alley abortions could now become horror stories of legal store front abortions. That's it.

Brian Brown said...

The whole point of making abortion legal is to make it safe.

No. The whole point of making it legal was to abort a whole heck of a lot of (those negro & brown) babies.

The people who started this movement believed the "undesirables" shouldn't be having kids. Since that message, is, well, quite ugly, they caged the movement into "women's health!"

They were liars.

They were swell people, weren't they?

Bruce Hayden said...

I think that Ann is right here. He appears to have broken the laws designed to protect against late term abortions and infanticide after induced labor, and exposed the brutality and inhumanity of this practice. Absent a conviction giving him serious prison time, it would look to me like he was getting away with practices that look to many to be quite barbaric and brutal. And, if this isn't criminal, then what is?

garage mahal said...

Since that message, is, well, quite ugly, they caged the movement into "women's health!"


Right. Because this monster was part of the women's health movement! Cancer screening, contraceptives, murder. Same diff.

Methadras said...

Bruce Hayden said...

And, if this isn't criminal, then what is?


Pure, unadulterated evil. This is a stain on the American body. It is genocide, an infanticidal holocaust and we wring our hands and worry about it's politics.

tiger said...

If he IS convicted it will help it too.

Lydia said...

Inga said...
Either way, it has helped to bring the ethical question of partial birth abortion/ late term abortion to the forefront. It may force Democrats to rethink their stance on this issue, and that would be a good thing.

I agree that it's brought attention to partial-birth/late-term abortions. But I don't see the hard-core pro-abortion advocates among the Democrats (a very powerful constituency) changing their argument from one that's based on a woman's choice to one that sets hard and fast limits. It's a slippery slope to them, and they may be right about that.

Revenant said...

The feminazis told people 40 years ago, they wanted it safe, legal, and rare.

The pro-choice position has always been "we want it safe and legal and its rarity is none of your damned business".

The "safe, legal, rare" formulation is about 20 years old and is just a Clintonism adopted by the Democratic Party.

Revenant said...

Right. Because this monster was part of the women's health movement! Cancer screening, contraceptives, murder. Same diff.

How is cancer screening a *women's* health issue? Men aren't worth screening for cancer? :)

n.n said...

The remains of around 50 million human lives already litter the halls and toilets of abortion clinics. The records of their willful destruction have for a long time been on file at Planned Parenthood and other abortion advocates, providers, and oversight agencies.

The fact is that there are not enough people who care about an elective genocide. They likely think that the consequences of normalizing a disposable human life are restricted to the women and men who choose to reduce their "punishment" through abortion.

The guy who writes their checks sympathizes with their burden. He finds a common cause with their motivations and priorities. Perhaps the next guy or gal will have a different appreciation of human life.

jack said...

I think Gosnell is an evil genius.

The essence of all proper late-term abortion techniques is convincing clients, personnel, and the law that no birth has occurred, and no human being was involved.

Gosnell's genius is that he realized they had already done that. He then proceeded to act with financial efficiency.

edutcher said...

Revenant said...

The feminazis told people 40 years ago, they wanted it safe, legal, and rare.

The pro-choice position has always been "we want it safe and legal and its rarity is none of your damned business".

The "safe, legal, rare" formulation is about 20 years old and is just a Clintonism adopted by the Democratic Party.


No, I remember it very clearly back in the 70s as their big rationale for all those "clinics".

ken in tx said...

Many of these aborted children would grow up and come to your house and try to to kill you and take your stuff. Be Grateful.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I got a fund raisin "Baby Boy B" email I want to share here.

Dear Lem___

Breaking news in the trial of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell. And you are not going to like it.

The judge in the case has dropped 3 of the 7 murder charges of newborn babies.

One of those babies is pictured below. I'd tell you his name, but he didn't live long enough to have one - we know him only as "Baby Boy B."

Baby Boy B was only alive for 28 weeks. He was one of 47 babies found frozen in water jugs in Kermit Gosnell's "House of Horrors." His neck had been cut open, and his spinal cord was "snipped" with a pair of scissors. I’m sorry to be so graphic. But this is the reality. This is what Baby Boy B looked like when they found him:


---- gruesome picture of the back of a baby with a slit neck ------

And now just a while ago the court--one judge--has the audacity to look directly at this photo and say that there is not sufficient proof that this was murder.

The pro-abortion mindset is so deeply entrenched in our legal system that it can ignore eyewitness testimony and photographic evidence, as it has for so long - but we must ensure that the murder of Baby Boy B gets a hearing in the court of public opinion so we can hold the abortion industry and its supporters accountable for what they've done.

There will be no justice for Baby Boy B unless you act now.

Make no mistake: this is a tipping point. The facts coming out of the Gosnell case are changing minds & hearts. We are tearing down the wall of abortion industry negligence, and we will not stop until it falls completely apart. If you help us, we can:
•Change hearts.
•Pass abortion clinic regulations in every state in the country.
•Expose the abortion industry’s record of putting profits above women.
•Show that the Gosnell case is not isolated.

Our work together has gotten this trial in the news at long last, but so many people have yet to hear this story. And Baby Boy B's story needs to be told. It absolutely needs to.

We won't stop fighting. We will tell this story and expose the extremism of the abortion industry. We need an emergency donation today to bring additional resources to bear and increase that pressure. This is an all hands on deck situation.

The SBA List has been working tirelessly to hold both the abortion industry and the mainstream media accountable. We know that the Gosnell case is not isolated, which is why we’re helping expose the problems in abortion clinics across the country including in Virginia and in Delaware, where two nurses recently quit their jobs at Planned Parenthood citing the “meat market style of assembly line abortions” going on there.

Please, this is our chance to speak for the victims of Gosnell – every woman and child – will you give what you can right now, whether it’s $500 or even $5?

We cannot allow this judge to silence these stories. We cannot allow one man to declare that these atrocities are not murder. They are. It's the murder of innocent children. If we don't stand up for them now, how will we ever stop this from happening again and again?

Please, make a donation today - it's up to you to be the voice for the voiceless, for Baby Boy B. He has no one else to stand up for him but us.

For life,

Marjorie Dannenfelser
President, Susan B. Anthony List

Æthelflæd said...

ken in sc said...
"Many of these aborted children would grow up and come to your house and try to to kill you and take your stuff. Be Grateful."

Lebensunwertes Leben

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

... si lo hiciste a uno de estos pequeños a mi lo hiciste.

Mateo 25:40

Some Spanish translations go even further - aun a los más pequeños.

The most vulnerable... no one is smaller nor more vulnerable.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

In the face of this kind of thing... other things like Immigration on demand, terrorism on demand, same sex marriage... on demand can seem trivial in comparison.

The only thing that keeps it... I don't know... in a separate compartment somewhere where I cant easily recall it... is the notion that other right thinking, well meaning adults believe and know better than I, and they are a majority and I have accepted their decision.

If I don't... the trail could lead into Tamerlan territory and that is not good at all.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Tamerlan territory is the worst of all outcomes.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

I want to say that it would be a good thing for this man to get acquitted for the political windfall our side could stand to gain from it... but I cannot in good conscience say that.

I hope this man goes to prison for the rest of his life.

Saint Croix said...

Because this monster was part of the women's health movement!

Of course he was. You can find him here, right over the birth control ad.

Dr. Gosnell's other abortion clinic the Atlantic Women's Medical Services in Delaware, was a member of the National Abortion Federation. See this, too.

And, as has been pointed out numerous times on this blog, other doctors would refer their patients to Dr. Gosnell. Indeed, the grand jury mentioned this in their indictment.

Finally, the Pennsylvania medical and legal systems ignored any and all reports coming out of his abortion clinic in Philly. And this malfeasance is entirely attributable to the "women's health movement."

from the grand jury report...

officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions.

A doctor from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia hand-delivered a complaint, advising the department that numerous patients he had referred for abortions came back from Gosnell with the same venereal disease.

The medical examiner of Delaware County informed the
department that Gosnell had performed an illegal abortion on a 14-year-old girl carrying a 30-week-old baby.


a woman, years before Karnamaya Mongar, who died of sepsis after Gosnell perforated her uterus...

None of these officials gave a shit, garage. They did nothing. Their ideology told them to ignore it, so they did.

When liberals say "women's health," it's a code word for abortion. Don't you know that?

Saint Croix said...

The whole point of making abortion legal is to make it safe.

No, the point is to make it legal, and widely available. Liberals don't actually care if abortion leads to infertility or premature deliveries, or breast cancer or even maternal deaths. Any evidence that abortion might cause problems with reproductive health will be buried or denied.

Just like all the reports coming out of Dr. Gosnell's clinic were buried or denied.

They don't give a shit about facts. They censor photographs, they censor 3-D ultrasounds, and they hide the bodies as "medical waste." The entire abortion regime is filled with ideology, spin, and Orwellian rhetoric.

"Abortion is safer than birth," they say, and they will continue to say it. Even as Dr. Gosnell induced labor and delivered babies to avoid doing a D&E abortion. Indeed, Dr. Gosnell is finding himself prosecuted for murder precisely because a D&E abortion is so dangerous to women.

Saint Croix said...

In 1983 the Supreme Court mentions the D&E procedure in Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health. The Court writes, "D&E may be performed safely…(in) nonhospital facilities.” Indeed, the Court said the D&E medical procedure was so utterly safe, it was actually unconstitutional for a state to require a hospital visit.

The Akron Court writes, “a second trimester abortion costs more than twice as much in a hospital as in a clinic.” Yes, that’s because a hospital is where all the life-saving equipment is. But the Akron Court is not actually thinking about saving lives. The Akron Court is thinking about saving money. The Court writes that an “in-hospital abortion costs $850-$900, whereas a dilation-and-evacuation (D&E) abortion in a clinic costs $350-$400.”

Yes, clinics are cheaper than hospitals. And hospitals are safer than clinics. Even if you want to say the Constitution requires abortions, it seems rather insane to say the Constitution requires cheap abortions rather than safe ones. The Akron Court seems to have an obsession with keeping abortion as cheap as possible. The Court is dictating a cost-cutting rule, and insisting that the Constitution requires us to save $500 by keeping abortions in clinics.

In Akron the Court is deciding that money is more important than the safety of an abortion procedure. And this so-called constitutional rule is being forced upon us by an unelected branch of our government. We realize how obscene this is when we read, 17 years later, about all the actual dangers of the D&E. The Supreme Court lists them for us in Carhart:

“sharp bone fragments passing through the cervix”
“uterine perforations caused by (the doctor’s) instruments”
“infection-causing fetal and placental tissue in the uterus”
“potentially fatal absorption of fetal tissue into the (bloodstream)”

All of those issues sound rather dangerous. It’s almost like you ought to be in a hospital before you have this sort of surgery!

What’s disgraceful about this is that the Supreme Court is telling us, for the first time, that the D&E is a dangerous medical procedure. This is the same Supreme Court who has been saying for 17 years that the D&E is so safe that we can’t require a hospital visit. And now we are hearing that the D&E is so dangerous, that it justifies killing a baby outside the womb.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Ken, what an appalling thing to believe.

Anga2010 said...

False Premise.
Many also tend to use logical short-cuts, called heuristics. These are thought processes that are not strictly valid in their logic, but are true most of the time and therefore are a useful rule-of-thumb as to what is likely to be true. But they get us into trouble when they substitute for valid logic.

Also because, as stated above, there is a tendency to start with desired conclusions and then construct arguments to support them, many people will happily draw upon logical fallacies to make their arguments. In fact, if a conclusion is not true one must either employ a false premise or a logical fallacy in order to construct an argument that leads to that conclusion. Remember, a sound argument (one with true premises and valid logic) cannot lead to a false conclusion. So in order to avoid using logical fallacies to construct invalid arguments, we need to understand how to identify fallacious logic.

Unknown said...

"The point of making abortion legal was to make it safe."? It was never "safe" for the baby that's killed. If the magic line invoked by pro-aborts between "safe" and "unsafe" abortions actually existed in reality instead of only in rhetoric, defenders of allegedly "safe" abortion would not have averted their eyes from Gosnell. He is the face of legal abortion.

Pettifogger said...

Inga said an acquittal might make pro-choicers rethink their position.

I fear that being pro-choice is more a matter of religious dogma for most progressives than it is a matter of considered thought. They have so long denigrated heretics it will be difficult for them to cope with the thought there might be a problem. So they won't entertain the thought.

Sydney said...

It appears that Dr. Gosnell's clinic is already causing ripples in the abortion industry.

30yearProf said...

Women DO control their own bodies. No woman must become pregnant.
They can go from the old Catholic method (aspirin held tightly between the knees) to the latest in morning after pills.

Only if the woman ALLOWS sperm to be placed in HER vagina, can pregnancy ensue. She controls that entrance.

Anonymous said...

"Inga said an acquittal might make pro-choicers rethink their position."

4/24/13, 10:34 PM

No actually this is what I said:

"Either way, it has helped to bring the ethical question of partial birth abortion/ late term abortion to the forefront. It may force Democrats to rethink their stance on this issue, and that would be a good thing."

4/24/13, 7:19 PM
-----------------

TMLutas said...

Gosnell is in his 70s. Chances are his advanced age and position in the community might just hold down his sentence if he's convicted on the four murder charges left. If he gets a minimal sentence, and is out in a few short years, would that make a difference?

Jenn said...

No, the optimal outcome for the pro-choice movement is for Gosnell to be convicted of the third-degree murder charge for killing the woman (I'm ashamed that I can't remember her name). The conditions at his abattoir were so unbelievable, and his methods so disgusting, that there can be no other reasonable outcome. All thinking people can agree that the conditions at his clinic were an exception, and once he's in jail, there will no longer be any dangerous issues with abortion clinics. It was all him, please move on.

However, he will be acquitted of killing the babies, because they were just fetuses anyway and women have the right to choose. And all of their mothers had chosen death for them. Before birth, after birth - what difference, really, does it make?

If this happens - and the coldly cynical part of me feels sure it will - then it will cement, even more, the pro-choice reality that abortion kills babies, and that we, as a culture and society, don't really care. No one with an IQ over room temperature actually believes that a fetus isn't a baby, that the dearly longed-for and deeply mourned miscarried child at 8 or 12 weeks isn't identical in every physical way to the aborted and medical-waste disposed-of fetus at your local Planned Parenthood. But humans are very good at denying the humanity of those we find inconvenient.

I really hope I’m wrong. I pray the jurors show me that a baby, even an unwanted one, deserves to live, that murders performed under comforting euphemisms and bright lights are still murders. But I’m not hopeful.

David Kramer said...

I see a directed verdict coming.

smitty1e said...

@Big Mike:
The whole point of abortion is to destroy society.
It is a symptom of decay when people will not only cheerfully slaughter the unborn, but claim that butchery is 'reproductive justice'.
Hearts are hardened, and minds are trained to view falsehood as the new truth.
Lord have mercy on a people grown foul.

doustoi said...

As long as pro-abortion forces position the issue as "women's rights" instead of "human rights", and as long as pro-lifers agree to argue on the other side's terms, the pro-life side loses. It's a numbers game.

doustoi said...

As long as pro-abortion forces position the issue as "women's rights" instead of "human rights", and as long as pro-lifers agree to argue on the other side's terms, the pro-life side loses. It's a numbers game.

Unknown said...

The Reason for Gosnell? There is a huge lack of abortionists. Abortionists tend to be gray old weirdos. Kids graduating med school aren't interested in killing babies.

The death cult can't really afford to lose Gosnell. There is no one to take his place.

M.A. said...

Interestingly, the New York Times is all over the Texas fertilizer explosion where regulatory compliance fell through the cracks. Did they do a similar story on Philly and Pennsylvania? I think Gosnell is a greedy evil bastard, but, I think the actions, inactions, and willful ignorance of the public health authorities to be unconscionable and the real threat.

Renee said...

I see it as having no impact over all in abortion, we are less accepting of surprise/unplanned pregnancies.

More women will choose not to work in the clinics, the demand will be there but a shortage of clinics with nurses and doctors willing to do perform them.

I know plenty of women who go to law school to defend abortion, but how many women go to med school to become abortionists?

The doctors who will be performing these abortions in America, will be coming from unaccredited medical schools from out of the country. While abortion may be legal, only unlicensed doctors will be performing them.





danielnadenauthor said...

Stopping back-alley abortions were a main justification for Roe v. Wade. Now we find out that Gosnell *was* a back-alley abortionist. His use of wax and razor blades on impoverished women shipped from out of state to his clinic in 1972 is called "The Mother's Day Massacre and was arguably a deciding factor in the 1973 SCOTUS decision.

Now, 40 years later, we still have back-alley abortions. So where again are the protections for women that Roe v. Wade was supposed to provide?

modgudur said...

At what point does pro-life be come pro-death? Pro-lifers say that the quality of early life denotes society. The same is said on how we treat our elderly. I have great examples where a local judge is abusing his power of position to marginalize an elderly man in a nursing home. A court appointed female lawyer telling this court the lies the court wants to hear to keep this 93 year old in sub-standard care albeit still within the "letter of the law" This is a "cover-up" in the Grand good ole boy system of lawyers and judges, starting at the top with the Governor of Minnesota.

Saint Croix said...

No, the optimal outcome for the pro-choice movement is for Gosnell to be convicted of the third-degree murder charge for killing the woman

He had no intent to kill Mrs. Mongar. I don't believe he was there when his employees accidentally gave her the overdose.

We could, of course, blame him for his lack of oversight. Of course, if we do that, we could start blaming government officials for their lack of oversight.

Anonymous said...

Blogger Inga said...

"Inga said an acquittal might make pro-choicers rethink their position."

4/24/13, 10:34 PM

No actually this is what I said:

"Either way, it has helped to bring the ethical question of partial birth abortion/ late term abortion to the forefront. It may force Democrats to rethink their stance on this issue, and that would be a good thing."

4/24/13, 7:19 PM
________________________________

If you can find any evidence of this 'rethinking' let us know.

It won't happen.

Saint Croix said...

A conviction on the illegal abortion charge would help the pro-life movement, since Gosnell would obviously appeal that verdict.

Supreme Court caselaw says he can do abortions until birth for "health" purposes.

Planned Parenthood decided not to challenge the 24-week limitation in Pennsylvania (in Planned Parenthood v. Casey) out of fears that the Supreme Court might overturn Roe v. Wade.

And yet P.P. still insists that the state's 24-week limitation is unconstitutional.

And, true believers that they are, they had an unofficial policy of referring all their over-24 week patients to other abortion doctors--people like Dr. Gosnell.

modgudur said...

When Court's findings of facts are convoluted and contradictory, what is the TRUTH? How can this be about human life and prevention of suffering? QUALITY of life, for mother, fetus and even for the elderly. For example, an elderly man that is ignored by "the system". I have great examples of this "system" where a local judge is abusing his power of position to marginalize an elderly man in a nursing home. A court appointed female lawyer telling this court the lies the court wants to hear to keep this 93 year old in sub-standard care albeit still within the "letter of the law" This is a "cover-up" in the Grand good ole boy system of lawyers and judges, starting at the top with the Governor of Minnesota.

RecChief said...

Jenn said," All thinking people can agree that the conditions at his clinic were an exception".

Well, I am a thinking person, and I am thinking that these conditions exist wherever the procedures that Gosnell engaged in are practiced. That is, I don't think they are the exception. It is infanticide plain and simple, you seem only concerned with the 'messiness'.

Brian Brown said...

garage mahal said...


Right. Because this monster was part of the women's health movement! Cancer screening, contraceptives, murder. Same diff.


He is.

And thank you for proving you can't read and have no understanding of how America got to SCOTUS Roe & Doe decisons.

Big Mike said...

@RecChief, I think Jenn was bitterly stating the arguments that the pro-abortionists will make (and are making).

OTOH, here in Virginia the Washington Post and other liberal organizations are dumping all over Republicans in general plus Governor McDonnell and Attorney General Cuccinelli in particular over legislation that requires abortion clinics to meet normal standards for healthcare clinics that perform outpatient surgery even as the Gosnell case is proceeding.

Sam said...

I can't help but wonder, if Gosnell convicted (I'll believe it when I see it) does that mean that the women who sought him out for services where accessories to the murders he committed?

Blaine said...

This case exposes a fundamental difficulty for pro-choice adherents: What is the difference morally between a 27 week old 'fetus' and a 29 week old 'baby'? Since the distinction is purely a legal one untethered from morality (like the drinking age for example), it makes no moral difference if you kill at 20 weeks, 30 weeks, or 30 min. after birth. The 'safety' concerns of feminist writers illustrate their willingness to paper over the moral problem inherent in our nation's abortion regime. My question to them would be: "If Gosnell had run a 'safe' clinic in which no women died but late term abortions/infanticide were happening, would it be immoral as well as illegal?"

Jenn said...

@RecChief, BigMike is right. I was being sarcastic. The ideal narrative for the media, the pro-choice organizations and the Democratic party (but I repeat myself) is for Gosnell to be punished for the horrible conditions and methods of his clinic, leading to at least one death (and multiple infections and worse). It's an easy call - between the bloody beds, the cat feces, the frozen corpes, the baby-feet trophies and the uneducated staff, this place exceptionally bad. It allows them to say that "this" clinic was the problem, "this" doctor was a lone wolf rouge who was operating unsafely, but that this only applies to one clinic. Once he's convicted the problem goes away and abortion remains safe and legal. Nothing to see here!

If he's convicted or murdering any of the babies, though, then it becomes a harder narrative, because a jury of 12 regular people will have decided that the "products of abortion" are actually babies, and they have the same basic human right to live as any other person.

I don't have faith, though, that the jury will convict him for the babies. What are the odds that among 12 Philadelphians is at least one person who believes in the sacrosanctity of abortion? Who believes that there should be no restrictions, ever, on the right to kill your child as long as there's a umbilical cord involved? It only takes one juror to prevent those convictions. And if he's found guilty of the third-degree charge, then he won't be re-tried for the babies even with a hung jury, I'm sure. And thus the media narrative - "the jury agreed that the aborted fetuses were not people, and the Bad Dirty Doc is punished. Move along."

Jane the Actuary said...

Simple thought experiment: imagine that Gosnell's clinic was sanitary -- no cats, for instance. Now imagine that his method of late-term abortion consisted of (1) inducing labor, (2) assessing whether the newborn was developed enough to survive to any real degree and (3) either giving the baby to a nurse to hold until it died, if not, or sending it over to the nearest ICU, as an "abandoned baby," if so. Thoughts? Would there be a crime here? Could the child be treated as legally motherless?

OR -- and this is where Planned Parenthood isn't so sure --

does the mother have the right to a dead baby, not just an emptied uterus?

RecChief said...

@Jenn - I stand corrected, and apologize for the misunderstanding.

Æthelflæd said...

We like our murders to be neat and tidy and invisible. Gosnell's crime was to be messy and embarrass the neatniks.