The Silence of the Lambs

[A few words stolen from Paul Greenberg, Editor, Arkansas Democrat Gazette, published 08 May 2013, and abridged for clarity.]

Kermit Gosnell[‘s] …trial in Philadelphia-on multiple counts of murder-has been covered extensively by the local papers. …the grisly case of Dr. Gosnell, …upsets too many myths about abortion, the one American institution the Progressive establishment never challenges. Those of us who question this …are told the Gosnell trial is “just a local issue.” Right. The way the Boston Marathon bombings were just a local issue. The same goes for the Sandusky scandal at Penn State… The coverage of those “local” cases has been national… But not the trial of Kermit Gosnell, M.D.

…any story that might raise questions about abortion has become taboo. …abortion has become a political litmus test for the …left, …an article of faith. Result: What was once …a low crime now has become a kind of political sacrament. To criticize abortion …has become a kind of 21st Century heresy. It’s something respectable, certified… If we violate that taboo, we get kicked out of The Club.

Kermit Gosnell, M.D. …had a long …career… Dr. Gosnell’s has not been a solo practice. …the year before the Supreme Court declared abortion-on-demand the law of the land, the doctor teamed up with one Harvey Karman, an unlicensed practitioner who had already served …years in prison out in California for performing then illegal abortions. [Karman killed a woman and served only 30 months in prison.] The team …bused 15 desperately poor women between four and six months’ pregnant to Philadelphia on Mother’s Day that year, where they were subjected to one of Mr. Karman’s brilliant experiments: a “super coil” that was going to end their pregnancies… Sound familiar? Nine of those 15 women in 1972 suffered serious complications; one required a hysterectomy. The whole bloody fiasco became known as the Mother’s Day Massacre. …As it was described by one of Dr. Gosnell’s collaborators, the coil was “basically plastic razors that were formed into a ball . . . They were coated into a gel, so that they would remain closed. These would be inserted into a woman’s uterus. And after several hours of body temperature . . . the gel would melt and these . . . these things would spring open, supposedly cutting up the fetus.”

…No one who has kept up with the bloodstained history of abortion will be surprised to learn that Harvey Karman had traveled to Bangladesh [to test his machine prior to using it in Philadelphia] courtesy of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which is now the largest provider of abortions in this country-now perfectly legal abortions thanks to Roe v. Wade (1973). Yes, that’s the same Planned Parenthood whose meeting was just addressed by the [P]resident of the United States. He lauded its past efforts and pledged his full support for it in the years ahead under the banner of “reproductive rights,” …

…The first myth the Gosnell case threatens to expose is the belief that Roe put an end to “back-alley” abortions, making them “safe, legal and rare.” It might be more accurate to say they have simply been moved to store-front clinics like Kermit Gosnell’s. The second myth is that Dr. Gosnell is some kind of exception… But the grand jury report in his case notes that “respectable” abortionists up and down the East Coast referred cases to Kermit Gosnell’s clinic. …they had to have been aware of what he was doing, else they would not have referred their most troubling cases to him, not wanting to do the dirtiest work themselves. Kermit Gosnell, M.D., was less an exception …than a kind of niche operator, just accepting women further along in their pregnancies…

…To quote Justice John Paul Stevens, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg concurring in Stenberg v. Carhart (2000): “Although much ink is spilled today describing the gruesome nature of late-term abortion procedures, that rhetoric does not provide me a reason to believe that the procedure Nebraska here claims it seeks to ban is more brutal, more gruesome, or less respectful of potential life than the equally gruesome procedure Nebraska claims it still allows.” Don’t you love that phrase, “potential life”? …Does this sleight-of-word fool anybody except those who want to be fooled?

The original sin was making abortion itself the law of the land; once that was done, the awful consequences of that decision followed logically, reasonably, coldly. And so did the callous acceptance of those consequences, not just by distinguished jurists but by nice, well-meaning, respectable people who even now shield their eyes from what they condone, and even hail it as great step forward for “reproductive freedom,” … After Roe, [abortion] became just another commodity subject to a free… market in which operators like Kermit Gosnell found their niche. Any who object… and any …who …try to [limit late term abortions] by state law, are accused …of waging a “war on women.”

Kermit Gosnell’s great service to moral clarity is that he has ripped the mask of respectability off this whole legal doctrine…

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Paul Greenberg is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Editorial, Pages 18 on 05/08/2013

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