RUSH/EIB: If I may get solemn and serious, as this requires, there is shocking news out of New York. I don't know how shocking it is, but it's really bad, and it's Cybercast news service, but the actual source of this is the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. So this is a city source: "In 2012, there were more black babies killed by abortion (31,328) in New York City than were born there (24,758)..."
So out of a possible 56,000 black babies in New York City in 2012, 31,000 were aborted and 25,000 were killed, "and the black children killed comprised 42.4% of the total number of abortions in" New York City. This is shocking. Let me run these numbers by you again, because I know they're tough to follow on radio and I screwed up the addition. So there were, give or take, 56,000 black pregnancies in New York City 2012.
And 31,000 of the 56,000 were aborted and 25,000 were born. The 31,000 aborted was almost 50% of the total number of abortions, but the African-American population is only, what, 11 to 13%. These are striking numbers, and this is... Dare I go there? Yes, I do. This is exactly what Margaret Sanger had in mind when she came up with the whole notion of Planned Parenthood and eugenics.
I've always been amazed that the white, liberal elite champion Margaret Sanger, when it wouldn't take anything for Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons to go back and figure out who she is what she really wanted. How in the world there's any support for whatever Margaret Sanger attached her name to is beyond my ability to comprehend. Well, no it's not, because I know the left. Abortion is the sacrament to them. But this is just...
These people that are relying on the Democrat Party to protect them to take care of them, to guard them against whatever extremism might be coming their way from conservative Republicans, are wiping themselves out -- with the support of and the recommendation of the Democrat Party -- which puts abortion in top two of the most important issues going. It's just amazing here, and when you look at the reality of this and then you understand who it is they blame for their lot in life and their plight?
"The report is entitled, Summary of Vital Statistics 2012 The City of New York, Pregnancy Outcomes, and was prepared by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Office of Vital Statistics." Now, you'd have to say this is shocking news, and you've got Democrat Party advocacy behind it. You've got Democrat Party identity behind it -- and if you'd add all the other abortions that Democrats are having, you may have a little bit better understanding of why they're so eager for amnesty, and you might understand why the US birth rate is now dipping below replacement levels, which has all kinds of bad connotations to it, not the least of which are economic.
Marchers braved the cold and snow in Washington, DC today for the annual March for Life. The Heritage Foundation was on the ground to capture the event and grabbed some amazing footage and interviews.
Sixty-two percent of those polled believed that abortion is morally wrong, and only 36 percent found it morally acceptable. Two percent of Americans indicated that it was not a moral issue.
Fifty-three percent of respondents said they believe life begins at conception.
The poll shows that most Americans choose a more moderate position on abortion, but believe it should be restricted.
Support for restrictions on abortion includes 79 percent supporting a 24-hour waiting period, 58 percent supporting a woman receiving an ultrasound before her abortion and 80 percent supporting parental notification for underage patients.
Even respondents who identify themselves as strongly pro-choice indicated that they do not believe in unrestricted access to abortions.
Sixty-four percent of strongly pro-choice Americans agreed that a patient should wait 24 hours before an abortion and consult with professionals, 62 percent support parental notification and 68 percent believe doctors who perform abortions should be required to have hospital admitting privileges.
The release of the poll coincides with the National March for Life in Washington.
Watcher of Weasels/Forum: Every week on Monday morning, the Council and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher’s Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day.
As you may know, a number of states including Texas have placed major restrictions on abortions performed after 20 weeks. This week’s question: Do you agree with recent legislation in several states limiting late term abortions?
Rhymes With Right: I support these restrictions wholeheartedly. After all, they are consistent with Roe and its rationale that the state acquires a stronger right to regulate abortion the closer the child is to viability — because that child is undoubtedly a living human being that the state can and should protect.
Now some may point out Roe uses a trimester system for determining when a state may regulate abortion. Unfortunately for supporters of abortion, that logic was not based upon constitutional law, but upon the state of medical science in 1973. But over the last four decades, we have seen advances that make 20-22 weeks the point at which a child in utero becomes viable. As such, the courts are going to have to grapple with the reality that the bad law found in Roe is also bad science as well. As one of my professors (an ACLU board member at the time) agreed with me back during the Reagan years, the reliance of the Blackmun controlling opinion in Roe on medicine rather than the constitution makes Roe a decision inevitably on a collision course with itself. Well, today we have reached the point of collision.
So yes, these laws (including those in conservative hotbeds like New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts) will be challenged and some of them may be overturned at the District or Circuit Court levels. That will put them on course for the Supreme Court — which will have three choices. What they will not do is overturn the notion of abortion as a legal right — doing so would upset too many other cases because they depend upon the reasoning of Roe. So while the morally and constitutionally correct thing would be to strike down Roe as bad law, that won’t happen.They will either have to constitutionalize medicine as it stood in 1973, remove all restrictions from abortion, or (and this is the best choice) declare that advances in medicine have changed the time and manner for regulating abortion. What the Supreme Court will do will be dependent upon the whims of Justice Kennedy and any changes that take place in the court’s lineup between now and some future decision day in these cases.
Liberty’s Spirit: I have to say, along with 80% of the USA, that third trimester abortions are infanticide. 60% of society also thinks that second trimester abortions are infanticide as well. Science has proven that babies feel pain, suck their thumbs, play, burp, hiccup, respond to music and even their mother’s voices by the end of the 5th month of gestation. It is ignorant of the pro-abortion groups to continue to simply say that the only issue here is the right of the mother to do what she wants with her body. They fail to acknowledge that by the end of the second trimester there are two viable human lives at stake and that is exactly what makes this issue such a moral and ethical conundrum. Additionally the pro-abortionists fail to acknowledge that NO right is absolute. It is always a balancing act between competing interests. The same should be for abortion; the right(s) of the mother to life versus the right of a viable baby to be born.
I do not think that restrictions on late term abortions are necessarily good or bad. Quite frankly I think it depends on exactly what the exceptions happen to be. There are terrible genetic anomalies, which cannot be seen until after the 5th month of gestation. Sometimes there are such painful choices to be made during a pregnancy that it is simply heartrendering and these decision must be private. But for some advocates, on both sides of the issues, in order to get their own way, they like to make these issues simple but these issues are anything but simple or always clear.
Not all babies develop normally and at times terrible tragedies occur. There is no point in a baby developing without a brain or kidneys to be born. If they were born to what end? What about genetic testing for diseases like tay-sachs? Are the results of these tests known before the end of the 5th month? What is the point of allowing such horrible suffering to occur? What is the point of such a terrible death? If there is a more humane way for all to end the suffering then so be it.
But there are also additional issues with unfettered abortion. Gendercide, and the disrespect of the right to life of the disabled. While gendercide is illegal in the west, pro-abortion groups do not denounce it. Babies diagnosed with Down syndrome have a 98% chance of being aborted. Basically the disabled are thought to be less worthy of life. Doctors also think they know everything about the life of the disabled but they have been proven terribly wrong over the past decades too. Gendercide will lead to economic instability and procreative issues for future generations. Dehumanizing the disabled has immediate consequences for human society. Only the Nazis in modern history felt the disabled unworthy of life.
A major part of the problem with abortion is that to kill we need to see our victim as not human. The pro-abortion groups try to tell society that the child growing in the womb is not a person, or that the disabled are less entitled to life, or that its OK to decide you don’t want to give birth to a girl. The reality is that this attitude reaches down into the heart of humanity, and characterizes a civilization. To dehumanize the unborn, to make this an easy question with an easy answer, is to dehumanize all of us. Is this the legacy that we want to leave our posterity?
JoshuaPundit: I’m hardly surprised that the ‘right’ to murder a baby over 20 weeks old who was conceived via consensual sex, poses no danger to the mother’s health and is developed enough to feel pain and and shock at being ripped out of the womb would not be thought of as ‘radical’. After all, look the proponent of infanticide whom the American people not only voted in as president but actually re-elected.His stance on abortion is not much different than Dr. Gosnell’s except he favored doing it in somewhat cleaner surroundings.
There’s no question these new laws will be challenged, and I’m not certain they’ll survive – we’ll have to see. But the fact that something like this would even be controversial at all, let alone our embrace of politicians that regard something like this as controversial and make political capital out of it is..unholy. I can’t think of any other word for it. And I am by no means a hardliner who wants to see all abortion criminalized.
The Glittering Eye: Back when the Supreme Court initially decided Roe v. Wade, my immediate reaction was that the viability approach that the Court had relied on would result in abortion activists waging a losing war with technology. The recent controversy over a law limiting abortions after 20 weeks in Texas is just the most recent battle in that war.
I find it really fascinating that the Texas legislature’s position, actually a pretty moderate one and consistent not only with the laws of most other states but quite in alignment with public opinion nationally, is being portrayed by a compliant press as a radical position while a radical position, the one being taken by abortion activists and oddly inconsistent with the actual law of the land which has never held an unlimited right to abortion, is being portrayed as moderate and commonsensical.
The Independent Sentinel: I do agree with limiting late-term abortions. After seeing sonograms, I don’t know why everyone doesn’t agree with me. Babies are viable at 20 weeks and that should be the cutoff with the proviso that exceptions be allowed in cases of rape, incest or if a woman’s life is in danger.
For a woman who can’t make up her mind by 20 weeks, why should we justify abortion so she can rectify her “mistake?”
I am very tired of women calling their babies fetuses when they want to kill them but babies when they are looking forward to giving birth. It’s rationalization run amok.
Why did we bother prosecuting Kermit Gosnell if we are going to allow the murder of babies up to the moment-of-birth? What’s the difference between the two really?
We treat animals better in this country. Can you imagine how crazed animal lovers would be if we said that in order to reduce the dog & cat population, we were going to perform a partial-birth abortion on as many as possible. A partial-birth abortion, which is the means by which doctors abort late-term babies, requires the person performing the abortion to randomly pull out the baby in parts. It’s savage and we wouldn’t do it to cats & dogs.
While several states are limiting late-term abortions, we have governors like Andrew Cuomo of New York who wants abortion to the moment-of-birth enshrined in the state constitution as a civil right for political expediency.
The trend of limiting late-term abortions has peaked. Too many women believe they have the right to kill any baby in their womb because it’s their body. Unfortunately, a lot of men are only too willing to go along with them.
JoshuaPundit: This is creepy even to someone like me, whose by no means wants abortion outlawed.
Outside the Texas state capitol in Austin, a Christian woman, an obvious pro-lifer is speaking about her beliefs vis a vis abortion ...and at some points she's almost drowned out by late term abortion fans chanting 'Satan!'.
The capitol of Texas where the legislature meets is located in Austin, which is quite different from most of Texas and is known by most Texans as 'Austin-tatious'. Leftist loons abound.
Since the reality of what late term abortions actually consist of surfaced in the Gosnell trial, a number of states have passed laws limiting late term abortions.
In Texas, where a local Dr. Gosnell clone surfaced recently, the House State Affairs Committee passed a pro-life bill to ban abortions in the state after 20 weeks of pregnancy and hold abortion facilities accountable for obeying health and safety laws. The law is set to got to the state senate, where it will probably pass, although there have been the usual rabid demonstrations from the Democrats, whom I suppose at this point we could call the party of abortion.
I have no problem with limiting abortions to 20 weeks ( FIVE MONTHS) unless the mother's life is endangered or there are other special circumstances the law provides for. The other provisions, which are going to limit the number of abortion clinics has good points and bad points. It will eliminate butcher shops like Dr. Gosnell's but it will conceivably make it more difficult for some women in outlaying areas to terminate a pregnancy.Planned Parenthood, of course, will still be around.
On the other hand, there's always the option of traveling a bit or simply being more cautious about getting pregnant, and it's also a fact that no hospital is going to refuse to provide and abortion for someone without means or who is the victim of non-consensual sex. But to hear people who favor abortion on demand chanting 'Satan!' ? That puts things in an entirely different perspective. If this is what it's come to...
“This makes me ill, by the way. That a president of the United States shows up at an abortion factory, essentially, and praises their work. You know what else he said? He said the opponents of abortion want to return to the 1950s.” …Rush Limbaugh
Obama’s 5 Most Controversial Statements About Abortion and ‘Women’s Rights’ During His Planned Parenthood Speech
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the Planned Parenthood Gala at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on April 26, 2013 in Washington, DC. Obama defended the organization and told delegates that he would block efforts to cut off funding. Credit: Getty Images
On Friday, President Barack Obama became the the first sitting president to address the Planned Parenthood National Conference. It was a controversial decision, especially considering the ongoing Dr. Kermit Gosnell murder trial and the elevated discussion currently unfolding surrounding late-term abortion. But rather than avoiding abortion, he tackled it head-on, defending a woman’s “right to choose.” Additionally, he heralded Planned Parenthood as an organization that has served Americans in their greatest times of need.
Considering all that, TheBlaze has highlighted five of the speech’s key moments that we deemed the most interesting, controversial and noteworthy.
Without further ado.
Praised Planned Parenthood’s Family Planning Role
Before explicitly addressing the abortion issue, Obama seemingly hinted at it earlier in the speech. While recapping the services that Planned Parenthood offers, he mentioned family planning:
“Somewhere there’s a woman who just received a new lease on life because of a screening that you provided that helped catch her cancer in time. Somewhere there’s a woman who’s breathing easier today because of the support and counseling she got at her local Planned Parenthood health clinic. Somewhere there’s a young woman starting a career who, because of you, is able to decide for herself when she wants to start a family.“
Decried Critics Who Turn the Group Into a “Punching Bag”
Obama also took a firm stance against cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood, decrying politicians who have called for such measures. Similarly, he accused conservative opponents of advocating policies from the 1950s — a familiar claim uttered during his 2012 campaign (i.e. the so-called “War on Women”):
“So when politicians try to turned Planned Parenthood into a punching bag, they’re not just talking about you; they’re talking about the millions of women who you serve. And when they talk about cutting off your funding, let’s be clear: They’re talking about telling many of those women, you’re on your own. They’re talking about shutting those women out at a time when they may need it most — shutting off communities that need more health care options for women, not less.
So the fact is, after decades of progress, there’s still those who want to turn back the clock to policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century. And they’ve been involved in an orchestrated and historic effort to roll back basic rights when it comes to women’s health.”
Photo Credit: Politico
Tackles Pro-Life Abortion Policies Head-On
Rather than dancing around the abortion discussion, Obama decided to dive right in, taking particular aim at pro-life legislative attempts in states across the nation:
“Forty-two states have introduced laws that would ban or severely limit access to a woman’s right to choose — laws that would make it harder for women to get the contraceptive care that they need; laws that would cut off access to cancer screenings and end educational programs that help prevent teen pregnancy.
In North Dakota, they just passed a law that outlaws your right to choose, starting as early as six weeks, even if a woman is raped. A woman may not even know that she’s pregnant at six weeks. In Mississippi, a ballot initiative was put forward that could not only have outlawed your right to choose, but could have had all sorts of other far-reaching consequences like cutting off fertility treatments, making certain forms of contraception a crime.
That’s absurd. It’s wrong. It’s an assault on women’s rights. And that’s why when the people of Mississippi were given a chance to vote on that initiative, they turned it down. Mississippi is a conservative state, but they wanted to make clear there’s nothing conservative about the government injecting itself into decisions best made between a woman and her doctor. And folks are trying to do this all across the country.”
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the Planned Parenthood Gala at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on April 26, 2013 in Washington, DC. Obama defended the organization and told delegates that he would block efforts to cut off funding. Credit: Getty Images
Driving the Policy Point Home
To be sure the audience understood his point, Obama, again, decried pro-life legislative policies with a pointed quip:
“When you read about some of these laws, you want to check the calendar; you want to make sure you’re still living in 2013.”
U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at the Planned Parenthood Gala at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel on April 26, 2013 in Washington, DC. Obama defended the organization and told delegates that he would block efforts to cut off funding. Credit: Getty Images
“Planned Parenthood Is Not Going Anywhere”
In a message likely intended for both supporters and detractors, alike, Obama made it clear that Planned Parenthood isn’t going to disappear anytime soon — at least not on his watch. The president pledged to fight alongside the organization:
“So every day, in every state, in ever center that Planned Parenthood operates, there are stories like those — lives you’ve saved, women you’ve empowered, families that you’ve strengthened. That’s why, no matter how great the challenge, no matter how fierce the opposition, if there’s one thing the past few years have shown, it’s that Planned Parenthood is not going anywhere. It’s not going anywhere today. It’s not going anywhere tomorrow.”
According to the transcript, Obama concluded his speech by thanking the organization and by invoking God: “Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you. God bless America. Thank you.”
Planned Parenthood now says it's "appalled" by the Philadelphia house of horrors run by accused serial baby-killer and pregnant-mom murderer Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Bull.
The appalling inaction of the nation's largest abortion provider, along with countless other clinics and "pro-choice" groups in the know, speaks far louder than their belatedly self-serving words.
The criminal trial of Gosnell is entering week six. The death doctor faces seven counts of first-degree murder for severing the spinal cords of babies born alive during abortions. That's in addition to one count of third-degree murder in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old Bhutanese refugee who died of a monstrously negligent drug overdose at Gosnell's "Women's Medical Society" clinic. Her family has brought a separate civil suit against Gosnell.
Conservative and pro-life journalists have covered the gruesome case since Gosnell's arrest more than two years ago. Through social media, last week faithful chroniclers of this evil killing spree finally forced national outlets to acknowledge their selective attention to mass murder. While mainstream journalists flogged partisan story lines about the GOP's "war on women," turned birth control crusader Sandra Fluke into the nation's Florence Nightingale and splashed the photos of Sandy Hook children all over their front pages, the mostly poor and minority women and babies victimized by Gosnell went ignored.
The liberal Atlantic Magazine admitted last week: It "should be a front-page story." After a relentless Twitter campaign by pro-lifers, The New York Times grudgingly sent a reporter to the trial. But this is so much more than a media malpractice story. It's the nightmarish consequence of medical and ideological malpractice.
As I first noted in my column and on my blog when the scissors-wielding sadist was arrested in January 2011, the murders committed under the banner of "choice" were ignored for four decades by abortion advocates. The Philadelphia grand jury report, now amplified by trial testimony, outlined the systematic execution of hundreds of healthy, living, breathing, squirming viable babies. The panel concluded that the "vast majority of the babies he aborted" were more than 24 weeks old.
Gosnell joked that one murdered baby was so big, the child "could walk around with me."
On Wednesday, clinic worker Kareema Cross said she witnessed between 10 and 15 babies breathing after being delivered by patients who had received labor-inducing drugs. After their spinal cords were cut, Cross recalled babies still moaning and moving after being stuffed in shoeboxes. Their skulls would be crushed after delivery. Their feet and other body parts ended up in row upon row of specimen jars on display in Gosnell's filthy facility.
Gosnell's silent co-conspirators include the abortion clinics in Virginia and Washington, D.C., that referred Mongar and her family, who spoke no English, to his clinic because of its widespread reputation for doing abortions "regardless of gestational age." They also include the left-wing religious and immigrant community activists who "assist" refugees by hooking them up with government-funded "affordable reproductive health services," a.k.a. abortion mills.
Patients were "treated" by unlicensed incompetents, including a young girl groomed from her teenage years. The late-term mothers' wombs and bowels were perforated with infected instruments. Government inspectors "literally licensed Gosnell's criminally dangerous behavior," the Philly grand jury found. The Pennsylvania Department of State was "repeatedly confronted with evidence about Gosnell" — including the clinic's unclean, unsterile conditions, unlicensed workers, unsupervised sedation, underage abortion patients and over-prescribing of pain pills with high resale value on the street — "and repeatedly chose to do nothing."
As I noted in 2011, nearby hospital officials who treated some of the pregnant mothers who suffered grave complications from Gosnell's butchery did nothing. And an inspector for the National Abortion Federation, the leading association of abortion providers that is supposed to uphold strict health and legal standards, determined that Gosnell's chamber of horrors was "the worst abortion clinic she had ever inspected" — but did nothing.
Gosnell's enablers have concocted all sorts of excuses for themselves. The billion-dollar abortion racket says "lack of funding" and "access" to "health care" is the real problem. But expanding "access" is exactly how Gosnell got away with murder after bloody murder. As the grand jury revealed, pro-choice bureaucrats in liberal GOP Gov. Tom Ridge's administration concluded that increased inspections "would be 'putting a barrier up to women' seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay."
Gosnell's enablers also claim that his case is a grisly exception. But I repeat: Deadly indifference to protecting life isn't tangential to the abortion industry's existence — it's at the core of it. In the past few years alone, Dr. Andrew Rutland of California and Dr. Steven Brigham in Maryland had their medical licenses revoked after their late-term abortion mills were exposed. Like Gosnell, Rutland killed an Asian woman after administering a drug overdose during a late-term abortion procedure. Like Gosnell, Brighamstored the bodies of late-term fetuses in freezers.
Just this week, the state of Delaware announced an investigation of several Planned Parenthood clinics after botched abortions and the resignations of two registered nurses who witnessed malpractice. Surgical abortions have been halted at one of the facilities. "What I believe should happen is that Planned Parenthood should no longer be self-regulated," Joyce Vasikonis told The News Journal.
Even as it disavows Gosnell's "criminal enterprise," Planned Parenthood's lobbyist in Florida officially testified three weeks ago that the group believes the decision to save a baby born alive after a botched abortion "should be left up to the woman, her family and the physician."
The sanctity of "privacy" and "choice" trumps the sanctity of life, you see. It's how all abortion profiteers get away with murder.
By Michelle Malkin - author of "Culture of Corruption Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks and Cronies" (Regnery 2010). Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
"First MOLOCH, horrid King besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents tears, Though, for the noise of Drums and Timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire To his grim Idol - John Milton, Paradise Lost
JoshuaPundit – Cross-Posted at AskMarion: Tophet is Moloch, which was made of brass; and they heated him from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child between his hands, and it was burnt; when it vehemently cried out; but the priests beat a drum, that the father might not hear the voice of his son, and his heart might not be moved. - Rashi, 12th century commentary on Jeremiah 7:31
There was in the city of the Carthaginians a bronze image of Cronus (Moloch) extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire. - Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca historica 49 BC.
In ancient times, there was a god worshiped in the Middle East called Ba'al, Moloch, Milkh, or Tophet among other names among the Canaanites, Phoenicians and Carthaginians whose attributes were similar to those of the Roman Saturn or the Greek Cronos. Its rites included the murder of children by tossing them into the fire built within or next to the idol.
In Leviticus 20:2-5, G-d enjoined the Jews never to give any of their seed as a sacrifice to Molokh, and that anyone who did would surely die because "I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go astray after him."
There's a trial going on in Philadelphia today in Philadelphia that merits notice in this context.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell ran an abortion clinic in the city and is accused of a number of horrendous crimes, according to the Grand Jury report: "This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy - and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors."
"The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels - and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths."
He's been charged with 7 counts of first degree murder.
The illegal part of what Dr. Gosnell did is worthy of reflecting on.
According to his former clinic staff, at least 100 living babies were murdered moments after Dr. Gosnell (or in some cases, his unlicensed assistants) ripped them out of the womb.Pennsylvania law forbids abortion in most cases after 24 weeks (the end of the second trimester). His standard method of killing the children was snipping the spinal cords, what one of his assistants described as 'a virtual beheading.' Dr. Gosnell frequently used drugs to induce labor so as to deliver the babies faster and make the killing process easier. One of his assistants in testimony described 'fetuses and blood flying around everywhere.'
Several women patients were badly injured, according to the report. One was left simply lying there after her cervix and colon were torn in the process of trying to pull a baby out of her womb so it could be 'dealt with'. Another, only 18 years old, was not given proper care after her uterus was punctured and had to undergo a hysterectomy. Others actually contracted venereal diseases, painful infections and other complications because of the unsanitary conditions, where rusty and outdated machines, dirty, unsterilized instruments and filthy surroundings.
When the police finally got around to investigating Dr. Gosnell's clinic because of a tip he was illegally 'proscribing' drugs, they found fetal remains "stored throughout the clinic - in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers."
So what Dr. Gosnell is being charged with, actually, is performing late term abortions (illegal in Pennsylvania but not in a number of states), keeping a sloppy and unsanitary shop, allowing unauthorized and unlicensed personnel to perform procedures and administer drugs and the injuries and at least one murder that resulted from that.
Had he worked for, say, Planned Parenthood in a clean, up-to-date environment with licensed assistants in a state like California that allows abortion on demand for any reason no matter how far along the pregnancy is, he would have been doing essentially the same thing without any problems.
What Dr. Gosnell was doing to babies is not that much different than other doctors when it comes to late term abortions. They are merely more skillful and using better equipment.
The usual process is to puncture the baby's skull and use a hose to suction out the brains and collapse the skull so it can be pulled out of the womb.
Two questions come to mind of most people hearing about this immediately.
This went on literally for years. Didn't anyone complain to the authorities?
Yes, as a matter of fact, they did. The Departments of Health for both the City of Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania had received reports of what was going on in Dr. Gosnell's infanticide factory. Even after one of Dr. Gosnell's employees went to the state board and filed a formal complaint on what was going on, nothing was done.
When Dr. Gosnell applied for membership in the National Abortion Federation, the professional association of abortion practitioners because of the referrals that were possible, an inspector visited the clinic and turned him down - but made no report to the authorities on what she found there.
In the end, it wasn't the murder of babies or injuries to women that got Dr. Gosnell closed down, but a tip to the police that he was illegally prescribing drugs. Even then, he was allowed his freedom for a number of weeks, which gave him time to destroy most of his records.
Why?
And once this became a news story, why did the dinosaur media refuse to cover it? Under the classic journalism formula of 'if it bleeds, it leads' this should have been a major news story on the alphabet networks, the New York Times,the Washington Post, every major outlet you can think of. Why did they ignore it?
The picture below, courtesy of Breitbart is a photo of the empty 'reserved media section' at the Gosnell trial last week.
There are a number of reasons why the Pennsylvania authorities were reluctant to investigate Dr. Gosnell, and why the media steered clear of this story, and they're connected.
The dinosaur media, as even Dave Weigel of Slate admits, "are, generally, pro-choice. Twice, in D.C., I've caused a friend to literally leave a conversation and freeze me out for a day or so because I suggested that the Stupak Amendment and the Hyde Amendment made sense. There is a bubble."
These same, overwhelmingly Leftist journalists are generally rabidly anti-Second Amendment. So a one off situation where a mentally ill malcontent murders his mother, steals her guns and is somehow let into a school supposedly under lock down procedures is a headline story, a cause celebre' and a trigger for massive legislation whereas a Philadelphia doctor who murdered hundreds is something to be ignored. It's all about the agenda and what serves it.
The same thing applies to a bureaucracy in a state that has a strong 'pro-choice' lobby. They're reluctant to be seen shutting down an abortion facility unless the abuses are so blatantly obvious they can't be ignored.
Another aspect of the Gosnell case that merited it being studiously ignored by the media (and I've yet to see it mentioned anywhere) is its connection with President Obama.This president has a clear record as a vigorous advocate of denying babies who survive an abortion medical care. His stance on the matter was more radical than even NARAL's. and the proper name for this is infanticide. That's pretty much what Dr. Gosnell is accused of, murdering viable, fully formed babies outside the womb.
Even worse from the standpoint of the media and abortion-on-demand advocates, Planned Parenthood, whose primary source for their multi-million dollar income according to their own budget is abortion and the Federal funds that cover it seem to agree with that, as this snippet makes clear.
I actually feel for this woman. She appears to know that what she's defending is morally wrong, but also knows that as a Planned Parenthood spokesperson she's being paid to advocate for it. And her discomfort is obvious.
Now that this story is in the public eye, abortion on demand advocates are attempting to spin it by saying that Dr. Gosnell's little shop of horrors is what women will be facing if abortion is criminalized.But the fact remains this was a legally licensed abortion clinic in good standing, no one is talking about criminalizing abortion per se and that what we're talking about here is something very different. Again, had Dr. Gosnell been working for Planned Parenthood in a state that allows abortion later than 24 weeks in a clean shop with licensed assistants, nothing would be said.
What's bothering a lot of people whether they admit it or not is what this says about our culture.
One of the babies was so big - the 'nurse' estimated his age at 30 weeks - that Dr. Gosnell joked that that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop.
On another occasion, she testified that she killed a baby delivered into a toilet by cutting its neck with scissors. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she replied, “At first I didn’t.”
For thirty years, our culture has been instructed to think of children in the womb no matter how advanced in gestation as mere blobs of tissue rather than viable, living human beings. Is it any wonder that at first Adrienne Moton had no second thoughts, no qualms about what she was doing, that she had to think about it for awhile?
At this point, we get to the ultimate issue.
And it's not enough to mouth a slogan like "I'm a liberal and pro choice."
Is a six-month-old child in the womb not a person with a right to life? Obviously in some cases, say, where the mother's life is in danger there's a different priority.
But if we have a healthy mother and a healthy child in the womb conceived through consensual sex who is a viable baby, if a six-month old child in the womb with a fully developed nervous system and able to feel pain is 'not a person', if that child's choices should be arbitrarily taken away for someone else's convenience, then that is neither liberal nor pro-choice if we look at a dictionary and see what those words actually mean.
Dr. Gosnell made a choice. So did the women who went to his clinic. These women could have made the choice to procure a legal abortion anytime up to 24 weeks, and if they were poor the State of Pennsylvania would have paid for it. Or they could have chosen to allow the child to live, and put him up for adoption to a loving family.
The choice they made instead involved taking away the choice of a defenseless human being who wanted very much to live. Do people whom call themselves 'pro-choice' support that choice? Are we as a culture at a point where we support that choice?
If the answer's yes, than we are no better than than the worshipers of Moloch, hurling children into the flames. And we will ultimately share their fate.
Infant Beheadings and Severed Babies’ Feet But Media Silent on Gosnell…
LifeNews.com: The Rutgers basketball story continues to transfix the media, and why shouldn’t it? Mike Rice, the disgraced former Rutgers basketball coach allegedly killed a woman and at least seven viable, born-alive babies “by plunging scissors into their spinal cords” in his filthy, macabre “house of horrors” abortion clinic.
Oh wait, my mistake.
Rice was fired last week from Rutgers over video of him shoving, kicking and yelling at his players, throwing basketballs at them and – most damning – using “homophobic slurs.” That’s made Rice the most notorious villain in America. And in one week it earned him 36 network news stories clocking in at 41 minutes, 26 seconds of air time on ABC, CBS and NBC.
Now, had Rice been accused of killing a woman and eight babies, he’d be enjoying the same anonymity as Kermit Gosnell– provided the killings were carried out in an abortion clinic. Gosnell is the West Philadelphia abortionist who ran an unimaginable charnel house of a “clinic,” for 30 years. Witnesses testified that he may have murdered over 100 babies outside the womb. Gosnell’s trial, underway for weeks, has featured wrenching testimony and horrific details. And it has received exactly zero seconds of airtime on the broadcast networks.
Let’s break it out by network.
ABC
Rutgers: 8 min., 1 sec.
Gosnell: 0 min., 0 sec.
CBS
Rutgers: 14 min., 27 sec.
Gossnell: 0 min., 0 sec.
NBC
Rutgers: 18 min., 58 sec.
Gosnell: 0 min., 0 sec
Last week, Media Research Center founder Brent Bozell and 20 other leaders of the conservative movement publicly demanded the networks end their blackout of the Gosnell trial. They haven’t. Perhaps they’ve been too traumatized by Rutgers and the “shocking videotapes,” as ABC’s Jenna Wolfe called them on “Good Morning America” April 6. NBC’s Erica Hill also called them “shocking” on that morning’s “Today.” At CBS “This Morning” on April 3, anchor Norah O’Donnell found the video “stunning.”
“We`ve all been in environments, basketball courts, locker rooms, where the coaches can get fiery, they can get animated with you, CBS special correspondent James Brown allowed, “but putting your hands on a player and engaging in that kind of – those kind of homophobic slurs and abusive behavior, you don`t treat animals that way.”
And you certainly don’t call them “faggot” or “fairy.” Rice’s bullying might have been excused had he not used those terms. In fact, they merited a special apology from Rutgers President Robert Barchi “to the LGBT community and all of us who share their values for the homophobic slurs shown on that video. I personally know how hurtful that language can be.”
ABC was so troubled by the antics of an overbearing basketball coach that on the April 5 “World News Tonight,” correspondent David Muir promised that the network’s “20/20” news magazine show “is now exploring the bigger question, the conversation started by that tape this week. How common is this bad behavior, how early does it start?”
And explore it they did, with Muir talking to “a mother devastated by that video the nation watched this week. Her son towering over that Rutgers coach, but still defenseless.” Stacy Williams, the mother of Rutgers player Austin Johnson, told Muir, “We have to now empower our children to say enough is enough and that we are not gonna stand idly by because you dangled a scholarship in our hands and allow you to get away with all manners of evil.”
“All manners of evil” … like severing a newborn’s spinal chord? Like JB said, “you don`t treat animals that way.”
LifeNews.com Note: Matthew Philbin writes for the Media Research Center
When I first saw the headline on this story I assumed that this was one of those secret videos where the ghouls don’t know they’re being recorded. But this woman, Lisa Laport Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, was arguing for post-birth abortion at a hearing before Florida legislators considering a bill to require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion. The legislature there is considering a bill that would require doctors to provide care to infants born after a botched abortion. This woman testified that it should be left up to the woman and her doctor. She didn’t come right out and say it, but she argued to allow women and doctors to murder infants…. or just leave them to suffer. One legislator who questioned her stated he was in “disbelief,” but unfortunately, this really is how the radicals on the left think. What’s really unbelievable is that our tax dollars fund this horrific organization and that our society has fallen to the point that we would even have to have a hearing of this sort. But if you listen below, our President agrees with her and Planned Parenthood. God help us!!
Illinois state Senator Obama in 2004 Defending Born Alive Abortion.
Comment: Barry Fail
America I weep for you! We were once a land of morals and heroes who gave of themselves for other(s) out of love, pure heartfelt charity and the laws of God! We've gone from the era of the Brady Bunch family values to Mylie Cyrus self destruction, corruption and selfish desires of what can I get for nothing! As we continue to "progress" away from the values that made us great our leaders continue to push for more progression towards our destruction! Oh how the great shall fall!
Forty years of Roe/Doe and millions and millions of government condoned murders in the womb, bought in part by your money and mine, confiscated by the taxes of tyranny. In the Bible and ancient traditions, forty is the number signifying suffering unto death. People who were scourged were whipped thirty-nine times. Now, it is forty.
This is your country, sovereign Americans. You are our principle leaders. You are accountable to God, for how you participate in our nation of self governance. What are you doing about it?
Alveda King & Frank Pavone: On the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
The year 2013 marks the 40th year since Roe v. Wade (January 22) and the 50th year since the “I Have a Dream Speech” of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (August 28). These two moments in American history have something to say to one another, from completely opposite perspectives.
Roe, inaugurating a sweeping policy about which most Americans are still unaware, declared that “the word ‘person,’ as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn” [410 U.S. 113, 158]. Dr. King, inaugurating a new season of hope for those fighting for justice, declared, “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’” Fifty years after that speech, and 40 years after that decision, a great chasm remains between the dream and its fulfillment in relation to the unborn child. The dream calls for equality, and Roe denies it. As Alveda has asked many times, “How can the dream survive if we murder the children?”
Shortly after we (Fr. Frank and Alveda) began working together full-time at Priests for Life, we were walking together at the annual March for Life in Washington. I (Fr. Frank) turned to Alveda and asked, “Does this remind you of the marches with your Dad and Uncle in the civil rights movement?” Alveda replied, “Fr. Frank, this is the civil rights movement.”
Forty years after Roe, this is a key point to reaffirm. Pro-life progress is slowed when the movement is identified with only one segment of the population, whether that be religiously defined (“It’s a Catholic movement!”), politically defined (“It’s an arm of the Republican party!”), or defined in some other limited way. But the cause of life is too big for that, too fundamental. The cause of life is so basic, so intrinsically and simply human, that it calls for expression within every sector of society. Protestants and Catholics, Christians and Jews, liberals and conservatives, blacks and whites, should all have their pro-life movements, together creating a harmonious advocacy for the most fundamental human right.
For decades, many leaders and activists have asked, “How do we get the black community more involved in the pro-life movement?” But that is the wrong question. The right question is, “How do we encourage the black community to take ownership of the cause of the unborn?” Such ownership occurs when leaders of the black community itself are the ones calling for pro-life involvement.
That is why Alveda became a full-time Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life (see www.AfricanAmericanOutreach.com). By combining the influence she has in the black community with the outreach of Priests for Life, she has been able to raise awareness about abortion among black leaders and grassroots activists. She has assisted the formation and growth of the National Black Pro-life Coalition (see www.BlackProLifeCoalition.com), comprising many leaders who plan and carry out projects aimed at making the black response to abortion what it should be.
A turning point in this effort was the Pro-life Freedom Rides in 2010. Alveda led the way with this Priests-for-Life project, modeled on the Freedom Rides of the Civil Rights movement. From Birmingham to Atlanta, and from Knoxville to the Memorial for the Unborn in Chattanooga, these rides were relatively short in distance but powerful in impact, as they took away from the abortion-rights movement the ability to claim that their movement was fueled by the ideals of freedom and equality that Dr. King articulated. And the rides helped to solidify the ongoing collaboration of black leaders in the cause of life.
Out of the Freedom Rides was also born the statement called “The Beloved Community and the Unborn,” a declaration calling for equality and non-violence for the unborn. This declaration was signed and read by Alveda’s mother, Mrs. Naomi Ruth Barber King, on the day of the annual March for Life in January of 2011 in Washington, DC, inside the Capitol building. The statement was also signed by Rev. Derek King (Alveda’s brother), by Gloria Y. Jackson, Esq., great-granddaughter of Booker T. Washington, by Lynne M. Jackson, great-great-granddaughter of Dred Scott, and by other black leaders. Moreover, this declaration was placed in the time capsule underneath the new monument to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that was dedicated in Washington, DC on October 16, 2011.
In part, the statement, which you can read in its entirety at AfricanAmericanOutreach.com, declares,
The work of building the Beloved Community is far from finished. . . . In our day, we cannot ignore the discrimination, injustice, and violence that are being inflicted on the youngest and smallest members of the human family, the children in the womb. . . . We declare today that these children too are members of the Beloved Community, that our destiny is linked with theirs, and that therefore they deserve justice, equality, and protection.
Forty years after Roe, therefore, the increasing activism of the black community on behalf of the unborn, with the understanding that this movement is made from the same fabric as the civil rights movement, is one of the most consequential developments. Intimately connected with this development is the increasing chorus of voices of those who have had abortions and testify openly that it did not solve their problems, but only created new ones. Alveda King herself is among those voices who have coalesced into the Silent No More Awareness Campaign (see www.SilentNoMore.com). Alveda explains,
God intervened in my life when I was in my mother’s womb. She desired an abortion and was persuaded to keep me after her mother insisted that they seek counsel from their pastor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. My Granddaddy told my mother that God had shown him in a dream three years prior that I was “a bright skinned baby girl with bright red hair,” and that I would “be a blessing to many.” Granddaddy King’s prophetic insight saved my life.
On the first anniversary of Roe v. Wade I celebrated my 22nd birthday. I experienced a legal abortion later that same year. I was already post-abortive because a trusted and respected African-American doctor had “played God” in my life in 1970, performing a D&C procedure in his office with only the explanation, “You don’t need another baby. Let’s see.” He made this decision, without my understanding or consent.
The doctor is long since deceased. I wrote him a letter of forgiveness in my life-changing Rachel’s Vineyard healing encounter. My role as a national spokesperson for the Priests for Life-sponsored Silent No More Awareness Campaign is very liberating in that I can turn my tests and abortion trials into a prolife testimony that allows the truth about the harmful impact of abortion and contraceptives on babies, women, fathers, families, and society.
Forty years have passed (see www.Roe vWade40.com). Dr. King asked, “How long?” and answered his own question by declaring, “Not long!” And so must we. No lie can live forever, neither the lie that abortion helps women nor the lie that some human beings are less equal than others. Above all, let this 40th year since Roe renew our confidence in the victory of life!
Dr. Alveda King is Director of African-American Outreach for Priests for Life. Fr. Frank Pavone is that organization’s National Director - the Human Life Review
