CoverUp?????

 

So what would you say to a representative of a major media outlet that has not covered the Kermit Gosnell murder trial?

 

By Dave Andrusko
On occasion NRL News Today has run stories whose authors bemoan the virtual blackout of the trial of West Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell by the Media Establishment (or what’s left of it). Why, for all practical purposes, have only the local Philadelphia media and on occasion the Associated Press covered the trial of a man accused of eight counts of murder?
Let’s ask the question a different way. Say you are the New York Times or the Washington Post or the major networks: is there any incentive to have a reporter camped out at the Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia for a trial that could last 6-8 weeks? (Never mind that if you had the slightest interest you could use a free lancer, or work out a deal with the Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News or the Associated Press to at least occasionally report.)
After all, it’s not like there are ingredients to this story that make for riveting coverage, indeed the kind that is so compelling it practically begs to be turned into a book.
Let’s pretend we are listening to one of the Big Wigs at one of these media outlets. His/her initial comment  is indented and in italics. His/her response to further information is in boldface and is not indented.

• Abortion? Goodness, haven’t we read a gazillion stories since 1973? So what if the prosecution says they were viable pregnancies. Gosnell and his right-hand man Steve Massof were perfectly within their right to abort these children–fetuses. That’s what Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton gave America: abortion on demand for any reason or no reason.

Oh… those pregnancies had ended, you say. Gosnell stands accused of deliberating aborting them in such a fashion that these babies—fetuses– were born alive and THEN he killed them? Hmmm. I think I agree with the Planned Parenthood representative who recently told a Florida subcommittee, in answering why there shouldn’t be an obligation to treat a baby who survives a botched abortion and is struggling on a table, “That’s a very good question. I really don’t know how to answer that… I would be glad to have some more conversations with you about this.”

• But Gosnell is clearly the subject of a double standard, if not (as his attorney suggested in opening arguments) racism. Indeed Jack McMahon has already told us we shouldn’t expect “Mayo Clinic” standards from a team that is practicing “urban medicine.”

Oh….the prosecution says Gosnell made millions off of illegal abortions and had $250,000 socked away under his mattress when authorities raided his house, do they?

• Okay, a man has to make a living. Gosnell didn’t take a vow of poverty.

Oh…the prosecution is also talking about conditions so appalling that District Attorney Seth Williams described Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society as a “House of Horrors.”

• Surely that must be an exaggeration.

Oh… “Prosecutors said the place reeked of cat urine because of the animals that were allowed to roam freely, furniture and blankets were stained with blood, instruments were not properly sterilized, and disposable medical supplies were used over and over.” (What’s this about keeping fetal samples, including severed feet, in jars at the clinic? That must be an urban legend.)

• Okay, so Gosnell stands accused of making a few bucks and not keeping his abortion clinic spic and span. If we cover this trial day in and day out (like you guys at NRL News Today), the next thing you know you’ll expect us to run excerpts every day from the Grand Jury report (like you guys at NRL News Today). How b-o-r-i-n-g.

Oh… Massof testified to what? That the way they killed—excuse me—completed the abortion was “like a beheading”? And that in testifying Massof ”at  times exhibited an almost ghoulish glee, smiling and giggling, as he described the abortions he did and infants whose spines he snipped with surgical scissors.” Hmmm.

• So the prosecution says seven viable unborn babies were  terminated ex utero rather than terminated in utero. Dead is dead, let’s not get hung up on location.

Oh… the Grand Jury believes hundreds of viable unborn babies—fetuses—were killed—terminated—by Gosnell?

• Why not charge Gosnell with all those “murders”?

Oh…. the Grand Jury claims the “files were falsified or removed from the facility and possibly destroyed.”

• Enough already. An abortion, by any other name—or in any other location—is still an abortion. It’s not like real people died.

Oh…Gosnell is also on trial on charges of third-degree murder for the death of a 41-year-old woman? And the Grand Jury thinks at least one other woman likely died after an abortion at Gosnell’s clinic? Why do you keep running all these excerpts that claim that “If something went wrong during a procedure – and it inevitably did, given Gosnell’s careless techniques and gross disregard for patient safety – he avoided seeking help”?

• I grant you, Gosnell—excuse me, Dr. Gosnell—could have done a better job, been a little less careless, perhaps, but nobody’s as insensitive as you suggest he is.

Oh… so, one employee “described at least 10 babies as big enough to buy clothes for, to dress, and to take care of”? And another said that Gosnell once joked about a baby that was writhing as he cut its neck, “that’s what you call a chicken with its head cut off”?  And that still another employee told the Grand Jury, after Gosnell delivered one large baby, he quipped, “This baby is big enough to walk around with me or walk me to the bus stop”?

I have to get going, now. It was nice talking to you. Clearly the Grand Jury became so zealous it lost all perspective–it became prosecutor, jury, and judge. What was that? Gosnell is going to go on trial this fall on charges that he made a fortune illegally dispensing pills, notably OxyContin? 

Source: NRLC News