Abortionist Kermit Gosnell was convicted yesterday of the first degree murder of three infants, and involuntary manslaughter with regard to an adult patient who died in what was once called his “care.” Today, Gosnell gave up his right to appeal, and has been sentenced to life in prison.
It’s a story so horrific, so full of nauseating details, that the natural inclination is to turn one’s head away, and read the lighter news. And one of the reasons he got away with murder for so long was the inclination of so many to turn away, even the authorities with the responsibility for inspecting the clinic/abattoir in which he operated. Of-course there was politics involved in that too. His conviction is not a neat ending, but it may at least be hoped that it will strike terror into the hearts of other “doctors” behaving similarly, and that it will give inspiration and courage to whistle-blowers. There can be no joy in merely seeing this man’s punishment, knowing that he operated like this for so many years in what we like to think of as our civilized, enlightened society. He believed there was nothing wrong with snipping the necks of living babies. After all, the mothers had come to him for abortions, and a living baby would be an unsatisfactory and unprofitable result. Not only was there no one to correct him in this perception, but those who worked with him, far from objecting, simply followed his lead. They didn’t exist in some kind of vacuum in that clinic in Philadelphia. They left each day, went home, watched TV, read the papers, socialized, came back the next day and did it again. These were not the crimes of just one sick doctor, but the concrete results of a sickness in our society. And we are far from seeing the final results of that sickness.
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Previously:
Helpless in Philadelphia (Jan 23rd, 2011)
Philadelphia Grand Jury Report on abortionist Kermit Gosnell (January 31st, 2011)
Guilty of murder in Philadelphia (October 28th, 2011)
Executed Infants (March 27th, 2013)