For me, as a dad, it is deeply symbolic that the 10th anniversary of the conviction of abortionist Kermit Gosnell falls on May 13, my son’s birthday. David, who, like his sisters, has brought so much light into my life, is a source of inspiration to me and to my wife, who has also dedicated her life to protecting unborn children–and their mothers–from the likes of Gosnell.
Gosnell is serving three consecutive life sentences for the murders of three babies he deliberately delivered alive and then killed by severing their spinal cords. Prosecutors (as was the Special Grand Jury that investigated Gosnell) were persuaded there were probably hundreds of other similarly executed newborns but Gosnell had destroyed the records.
Karnamaya Mongar also died at his abortion clinic in West Philadelphia. She died, according to prosecutors, when Gosnell’s unqualified staff gave her an overdose of Demerol and other pain killers in 2009. Gosnell was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.
At least one other woman also died following an abortion at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society abortion clinic.
According to the Special Grand Jury report, “On October 9, 2002, the Professional Underwriters Liability Insurance Company reported to the State Board of Medicine that it had paid a $400,000 settlement to the family of Semika Shaw, the 22-year-old mother of two who died following an abortion procedure at Gosnell’s clinic in March 2000.”
More specifically, she “died from infection and sepsis two days after Gosnell perforated her uterus and cervix during an abortion procedure,” according to the report.
Of all the horrible testimony we heard at Gosnell’s trial, in some ways the most disturbing came while the jury was considering the verdict. It came from the lips of Gosnell’s attorney. Jack McMahon said Gosnell could not be convicted of third degree murder in the death of Mrs. Mongar because that requires malice, or “conscious disregard” for her particular life.
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McMahon said, “She wasn’t treated any differently than any of the other thousands of other people who went through there.”
Truer words were never spoken.
On the 10th anniversary of his sentencing, surely a shout-out to Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer is due. There was essentially a media blackout for much of the trial but no two people did more to educate the American people than this husband and wife team.
In addition to authoring a book—“Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer”—they also produced and directed a movie—“Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer”—among other outstanding work.
Two concluding thoughts. First, as NRL News Today wrote extensively, the Abortion Industry insisted Gosnell was an “outlier,” a “renegade.” Instead of taking responsibility (and there was plenty) for Gosnell, the Abortion Establishment tap-danced around the truth, including that it had turned its collective face away from his grisly, lethal behavior.
Instead, they insisted, they’d barely heard of the guy and if “rogue abortion providers” like Gosnell exist, we were told it’s because of “anti-choicers.”
How’s that? We make it uncomfortable for them by “stigmatizing” abortion, meaning some the brightest and the best choose not to rip babies limb from limb.
But Gosnell is not an anomaly, as Planned Parenthood et al. insisted, as we have discussed countless times over the decades. If only he were…
Second, if you read even a portion of the 281 page report of the Special Grand Jury, you would nod your head in vigorous agreement with Christine Flowers that
Gosnell could not have done what he did without the assistance of powerful people. One man cannot operate unimpeded and under the radar for almost a quarter of a century without the deliberate cooperation of those in positions of authority, the gatekeepers who are appointed to ensure the safety of the people in this commonwealth.
Those powerful people included pro-abortion Gov. Tom Ridge, the state Department of Health, local medical authorities, the media, and the pro-abortion industry which by avoiding Gosnell assured themselves of plausible deniability.
Let me close with this, from the opening paragraph of the Special Grand Jury’s report:
This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here.
But no one put a stop to it.
The headline to Flowers’ column was “Pennsylvania’s Silent Serial Killer: What happens when you look away.” When you look away, you leave unborn babies and their mothers to the tender mercies of murderers like Kermit Gosnell.
LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. This post originally appeared in at National Right to Life News Today —- an online column on pro-life issues.
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