All week I have been reading opinion pieces about Kermit
Gosnell, knowing full well that this topic is right in my wheel house waiting
for me to make the pitch. However, I have
felt like I have nothing new to offer to the conversation short of juvenile comments
about how the man shares his name with a small green puppet. Which, let’s be honest, those are not
constructive…funny, but not constructive.
So, here’s what I have come up with: this is a horror
show. I don’t want to: know about it,
think about it, read about it, hear about it, or have “jars of baby feet” or “frozen
fetuses” anywhere in my consciousness. I
don’t even want to write about it, but here we are…
It seems that everyone who has heard, read, or written about
this story has had a visceral reaction.
It’s gross! A dead infant with a
severed spinal cord kept in a freezer is the stuff of CBS’ Criminal Minds, not the daily news.
I assume everyone is familiar with this story, but let me
give you a quick summary in case images of Mr. Gosnell and statistics about his “clinic”
haven’t invaded your Facebook newsfeed all week. Kermit Gosnell is an abortionist in Philadelphia,
who performed late-term abortions (abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy). His clinic was raided by the FBI in 2010 and
they found an absolutely appalling state of affairs. The clinic was filthy and smelled of
urine. There were blood stains on
furniture and blankets, aborted fetuses in containers, and a jar of severed
baby feet. Gosnell also had a patient
who died on his table and it is suspected that several women contracted venereal
diseases from the unsanitary conditions of his medical equipment. If that weren’t enough, he is accused of
infanticide, it is said that in some cases he waited until after the live birth
to sever the spinal cord of the infant.
Like I said, gross. The most
complete article I found was on The Daily
Beast and if you are a masochist like me and want more information, here is
the link.
The big controversy in this case isn’t the state of affairs
at the “clinic” or Gosnell’s procedures, he seems to be very clearly outside of
the law, and some (me) may even use the word sociopath. The controversy is that the media didn’t
cover this story well enough, personally I can’t blame them. I tend to think this is news worthy to our
society, but at the same time nothing about this story really surprised me. If a man is willing to perform a late-term
abortion, wouldn’t he naturally also be unopposed to infanticide? Furthermore, if a man cares so little for the
life of a viable infant, why should we expect him to respect the woman carrying
said child?
I come back to an article I wrote a little over a week ago, Stripped
For Parts. In this article I
explained how our societal view of life is illogical. If we really look at this horrible man his
actions were logical according to his beliefs.
He has no respect for life: the woman in his waiting room, the child she
carried or delivered, or the body of that child once he/she had died. Please do not misunderstand me, I believe
this man was a sociopath and deserves the absolute worst our society has to
offer him, I am merely trying to make the point that his actions should not
surprise us.
If you are a supporter of late-term abortion and his actions
do surprise you, please ask yourself why.
Why does it matter that the infant had drawn breath? Is there really an ethical difference between
severing the spinal cord before or after this breath? The act is still the same, the labor pain of
the woman unchanged, the viability of the infant exactly the same, the
difference is a moment in time and a literal breath of air.
There are few things in this world I find more appalling
than the abortion of a viable fetus. The
child in question no longer requires the shelter of the womb and at the last
possible moment before freedom his/her life is stolen in a flash of blinding
pain. Can you imagine something more
innocent being subjected to something more brutal? Any person who can perform this act day in
and day out is capable of great evil and nothing he does should surprise or
shock us.
So, there it is, pitch thrown…
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