Trial Posponed till Tomorrow

Gosnell Trial postponed until Tuesday, Grand Jury talks of “honor system” Department of Health used to justify not monitoring Gosnell

 

By Dave Andrusko

Ilyse Hogue

Jack McMahon, the attorney for accused murderer abortionist Kermit Gosnell, called in sick today, delaying the beginning of the defense’s case until Tuesday. We’ll take the opportunity to catch you up on a few items in a case that alleges Gosnell aborted seven children alive, murdered them by slitting their spinal cords, and was responsible for the death of a woman who was given an overdose of Demerol by one member of Gosnell’s army of unlicensed, untrained employees.
In this post we’ll talk about two important facets of the case.
First, be sure to read today’s excerpts from the Grand Jury report that served as the springboard for Gosnell’s indictment (http://nrlc.cc/XRL1YQ).
Here is the key paragraph:

“Gosnell routinely performed abortions beyond the 24-week limit. He was ruthless in severing the spinal cords of viable babies outside their mothers’ wombs. This conduct clearly constitutes prosecutable criminal behavior. In order for district attorneys to be able to prosecute, however, the crimes must first be detected. This is DOH’s [Department of Health’s] job – to ensure that violations of Pennsylvania health care laws are detected. Its inspectors must review files as part of their inspections. They must look at ultrasound tests and pathology reports on second-trimester fetuses. They must make sure that informed and parental consent forms have been signed and that abortions have been reported to DOH. Instead, Pennsylvania officials have created what amounts to an honor system, a system conspicuously lacking in regulatory oversight or enforcement.”

Yes, you read that right. The DOH established an “honor system,” otherwise known as an egregious failure to do its job: monitor and inspect abortion clinics. In its determination not to be “putting a barrier up to women,”  the abysmal failure of the entire regulatory bureaucracy meant not only that the law prohibiting abortions after 24 weeks was rendered null and void but babies born alive were executed, according to the prosecution.

Second, as always, the Abortion Establishment wants to eat its cake and have it do. By that I mean they want to insist that Gosnell was not one of them, but one of those  “rogue providers that prey on the most vulnerable of women,” in the words of Vicki Saporta, president and CEO of the National Abortion Federation. (“Providers”—plural– presumably means Saporta might grudgingly concede Gosnell is not the only “outlier.”)

They will also tell you (as Saporta and NARAL’s Ilyse Hogue told Colleen Curry of ABC News) “Pennsylvania already has strict abortion regulations, but that the regulations were not enforced, allowing Gosnell to run an illegal operation.” So, naturally they would be all in favor of all states having regulations at least as strict as Pennsylvania’s, right? Please! Of course not.
They have this convoluted argument the core of which is because you and I don’t work to convince the public that abortion is “good medicine,” we are “marginalizing” the practice and therefore driving women into the hands of the Gosnells of this world.  Somewhere in their rant is the insistence that it is our fault that abortion remains something that real doctors shun and therefore the door is left open to Gosnell and his ilk.

Really? If abortion really was “good medicine,” their numbers wouldn’t be dropping, regardless of what we said.
And you and I are responsible for Sapota’s National Abortion Federation sending a representative out to Gosnell’s abortion clinic, finding it beyond redemption, but not saying a word to the authorities? Really?

You and I are supposed to be mute while, according to the prosecution, 23.5-week-old babies in Pennsylvania (and much older elsewhere) are pulled part, limb from limb? And because we fight that abomination, we are responsible that Gosnell (according to the Grand Jury report)

“began an abortion on a 29-week pregnant woman and then refused to take dilators out when the woman changed her mind. We learned of another illegal, third-trimester abortion only because the mother changed her mind. She testified that she was surprised when Gosnell told her she was 21 weeks pregnant. On the first day of what was to be a two-day procedure, Gosnell inserted dilators in the woman’s cervix.

“After Gosnell had finished inserting the laminaria, the woman asked him what happened to the babies after they were aborted. She testified that Gosnell told her they were burned.

“At home, thinking over how Gosnell disposed of the fetuses, the woman had a change of heart. She called her cousin and the cousin called Gosnell to tell him that they wanted him to take the laminaria out. Gosnell said that he could not do that once the procedure was started. And he did not want to return the $1,300 that the patient had already paid. The pregnant woman ended up going to the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania to have the laminaria removed. It was determined at the hospital that she was 29 weeks pregnant. A few days later, the 27-year-old delivered a premature baby girl. She was treated at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and is today a healthy kindergartener.”

Really?
Be sure to read the Grand Jury excerpts and especially, “Is ‘Baby Boy B’ an “iconic photo”?

Source: NRLC News