More on the House of Horrors

What “befuddles” abortionist Kermit Gosnell?

By Dave Andrusko

Dr. Daniel Conway, an expert in the treatment of premature infants, testified in the murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell (sketch provided by NBC Philadelphia).

Sometime back, I believe it was in early-2011, I wrote about a preliminary hearing at which abortionist Kermit Gosnell, now on trial on eight counts of murder, seemed “befuddled.” To be honest I couldn’t find it, so I looked around and found this excellent column written by Joseph Bottum for The Weekly Standard which began
“Dr. Gosnell was a little befuddled at his arraignment on January 20. Indicted for eight murders, the Philadelphia abortionist told the court that he understood the first count, a charge of third-degree murder for the death of a woman on whom he had operated. He didn’t understand, however, the seven other counts—the first-degree charges for the deaths of seven babies delivered alive and then killed in his clinic.”

How do you make heads or tails out of a man who stands accused of murdering seven viable unborn babies after delivering them prematurely and slitting their necks but who doesn’t understand why he’d be on trial? Or of a man who one of his untrained assistants, Latosha Lewis, testified

“told her that he preferred it when women precipitated [delivered the premature baby], often before he got to the clinic, because it made his job easier. A surgical procedure to remove fetuses, Lewis explained, could take half an hour. Whereas there was little to do – just suctioning the placenta – when babies were already expelled. In addition, by avoiding surgical abortions, Gosnell was less likely to perforate the women’s uteruses with surgical instruments – something he had done, and been sued for, many times.”

But what if the babies hadn’t come?

“Gosnell would often have his staff physically push them out of their mothers by pressing on the mothers’ abdomens.”

Or, for that matter, of a man who acted in the following way when authorities raided his abortion clinic in 2010? Joseph A. Slobodzian of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote Monday

“[FBI agent Jason] Huff said his supervisor arranged for an ambulance for some patients but others required Gosnell to perform the abortion while agents searched.

“At one point, Huff continued, Gosnell returned to the clinic office to resume being interviewed and have some dinner.

“’He came back and ate his food still wearing the bloody, torn latex gloves,’ Huff testified.

Slobodzian added

“Gosnell, dressed in a charcoal double-breasted suit, listened placidly to the testimony, hands in his lap, a faint smile playing on his lips.

“Only when Huff described the clinic as ‘unsanitary’ and filthy did he frown. Several times he grunted and gestured to show McMahon items in photographs.”

Did/does Gosnell really not understand why he is on trial? Remember he is not on trial for performing abortions but for murdering babies whom the prosecution says he deliberately ensured were born alive and then killed by snipping their necks.
If you’re Gosnell, you might be saying to yourself, “I don’t get it. An abortion is an abortion is an abortion.” I don’t wish to make light of such a horrific, ghastly practice, but the way Gosnell approaches what he is accused of doing reminds you of the way a continuation foul is called in basketball.

The player is fouled as he is in the motion of going to the basket. Instead of the referees stopping the play at that point, he is allowed to take several steps more to score a basket. Although foul and basket are yards (and seconds) apart, they are treated as if it were all one continuous action.
Gosnell starts the abortion “in utero” (as some reporters have come to described what he did) and then he continues what he started, as it were, ex utero. The intent hasn’t changed, nor has the child, so he is “befuddled” when authorities charge him with murder for merely “completing” what he started.
Of course, if what prosecutors demonstrated this week is true, Gosnell couldn’t plead ignorance of the law in Pennsylvania where abortions are banned after the 24th week.

Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore questioned one woman,  Shayquana Abrams, whose unborn baby was estimated to be 29 weeks. According to Slobodzian

“Pescatore also had Abrams review her file from Gosnell’s office, which included three consecutive ultrasound photos Gosnell performed on July 10, 2008. In each, the size of the fetus gets smaller until the third has a gestational age of 24.5 weeks. Pescatore has argued that Gosnell and his staff manipulated ultrasounds to try to artificially reduce the age of the fetus so it would appear to be a legal late-term abortion.”

But that wouldn’t change his attitude; it would just be a reflection that he understood that while he aborted thousands and thousands of babies, there was a legal limit that, in theory, he could be charged with violating. (The Grand Jury found that Gosnell reported performing abortions on 24.5-week fetuses more than 80 times between 2007 and February 2010.)

But it is always essential to remember that Gosnell’s “House of Horrors” was not raided because of the murders he now stands accused of, but because authorities suspected (as FBI agent Huff testified) “that Gosnell was selling prescriptions for dangerous narcotics flooding the neighborhood.” (Gosnell will be tried in the drug probe in September.) After all these years and the accumulation (according to prosecutors) of millions of dollars, Gosnell doubtless felt invulnerable.
I’m assuming Gosnell will never testify. His attorney is a big-shot defense attorney who didn’t build that reputation by allowing his clients to be cross-examined by prosecutors.
But if he did, what a story of rationalization, self-deception, cruelty, and barbarism he could tell.

Source: NRLC NEWS