Unity: Two pro-life groups endorse Romney

Alternate headline: Ed Morrissey Sad that Americans recognize Kermit Gosnell as A Major Outlier.

libfreeordie on May 10, 2013 at 12:42 PM

There is zero reason to believe that Kermit Gosnell was a major outlier in abortion. There have been multiple abortion clinics found recently with unsanitary conditions and poorly trained, unqualified staff. Live Action has released about 4 just recently.

Wishing it doesn’t make it so.

And given that abortion clinics are so rarely inspected any more, the only sensible position is to start with the assumption that all abortion clinics need to be inspected and cleared, and then go from there.

There Goes the Neighborhood on May 10, 2013 at 5:39 PM

Anyone who thinks that using government regulation to intentionally destroy private business is acceptable is not a conservative no matter what they call themselves.

Armin Tamzarian on May 10, 2013 at 4:00 PM

So as long as it’s a business, all conservatives are duty bound to ignore ethical concerns and support it.

Does this apply to contract assassins? After all, as long as they’re doing professional hits and it’s strictly business, then all conservatives have to support their right to earn a living…

The idea that conservatives have to support anything that calls itself an industry is absurd.

It’s also an attempt to distract from the real issue. Neither side claims to support unsanitary and unsafe conditions. But the pro-abortion side is perfectly willing to live with all the above, and a reasonable level of death and medical complications, as long as their precious right to abortion is protected.

And that’s exactly why Republican governor Tom Ridge stopped inspecting abortion clinics, and Democratic governors after him continued the policy. Abortion is sacrosanct. The death of a few poor black women, and infants that were delivered alive, is a small price to pay.

Schadenfreude is right that this is nominally about infanticide. You could be all for the prosecution of Gosnell without necessarily being against abortion.

But we all know that it’s also about abortion. The single reason why the media won’t cover the story is because it might make abortion look less safe and desirable. The reason governments won’t inspect and regulate abortion clinics while doing routine semi-annual inspections of any fast food place is that it might cause some abortionists to go out of business. Rather than say, “Good. Unsafe practitioners should be out of business,” they would rather whitewash the entire industry and pretend there is nothing to be concerned about.

We could subtitle this whole nasty business with Gosnell (for the media) as, “All for the love of abortion.”

There Goes the Neighborhood on May 10, 2013 at 7:08 PM

There is zero reason to believe that Kermit Gosnell was a major outlier in abortion. There have been multiple abortion clinics found recently with unsanitary conditions and poorly trained, unqualified staff. Live Action has released about 4 just recently.

There Goes the Neighborhood on May 10, 2013 at 5:39 PM

I wasted my time watching three or four of those videos. Your characterization of them is inaccurate. Those videos are intended to make people disgusted with abortion because late terms abortions are alleged to be similar to infanticide. You should be more careful to make accurate claims.

thuja on May 10, 2013 at 6:41 PM

I guess to see the similarity between the videos and Gosnell’s clinics, you would actually have to pay attention. But I’m happy to clarify what I’m talking about, if you missed it.

Each of these videos focused on someone going to get a late-term abortion at an abortion clinic, and asking, “What happens if the baby is somehow born alive? Is it possible the baby might have to be rescued?”

It should be obvious how this is relevant to Gosnell, who actually killed a number of babies who were, in fact, born alive. In these 4 videos, the putative patient kept asking whether the baby would be left to die. In every case, they assured her a) it was unlikely the baby would be born alive, b) call us, because a hospital or ER might try to save the baby if it was still alive, and c) if the baby is somehow born alive, we can still make it unlikely the baby can be saved.

The videos demonstrated that Gosnell’s attitudes toward babies born alive after a failed abortion were not unusual. At these four locations, it was pretty clear that most of them were not going to turn around and try to save a baby they had tried to abort just because legally, it was past the point where abortion was allowed.

Now, as for your claim that I should be “more careful to make accurate claims,” I can do without your sham of “concern” for “accurate claims.”

I’ll say it again: there is zero reason to believe that Gosnell is some sort of a major outlier. Multiple abortion clinics have been found to have unsanitary conditions and unqualified staff. Multiple videos from Live Action have been released demonstrating that abortion clinics are not exactly going to jump up and try to save a baby that was born alive when they had been trying to abort that baby just moments before.

And really, is this even surprising to anyone? Did anyone honestly expect that an abortion clinic would reverse course in a heartbeat, when it’s so much easier to obfuscate whether the baby was really viable? It’s all too easy for that same clinic to move slowly to help the baby born alive, focus on the woman instead, and then fudge and delay until the baby is gone.

The only way to be sure that doesn’t happen would be for someone to be there who has an interest in keeping the baby alive. Everyone at the abortion clinic will perceive it to be in their interest to be unable to save the baby.

Your love for abortion and rush to defend it at all costs is frankly bizarre.

There Goes the Neighborhood on May 10, 2013 at 10:12 PM