CNN interviews LaToya Ransome, one of the victims of Kermit Gosnell, who faces eight counts of murder and other charges for his gruesome abortion practice in Philadelphia. Ransome, clearly reluctant to be on camera, relates how Gosnell’s work ended up making her so ill that she had to have open-heart surgery and disabled her. Ransome says that the death penalty is too easy for him and wants him to get life in prison instead:
CNN’s Martin Savidge introduces the segment rather oddly, saying that Gosnell is accused of “destroying viable fetuses.” Certainly Gosnell faces charges of performing illegal third-trimester abortions, but he faces murder charges for killing babies, not “viable fetuses.” The babies Gosnell murdered survived to birth, which means they no longer were “fetuses” at all. They were, both legally and morally, live infants requiring care. Instead, Gosnell and his staff stabbed them with scissors or cut their throats to kill them.
Other victims are also speaking out:
In one 1999 case, prosecutors said, 20-year-old Marie Smith was sent home after a Gosnell abortion unaware that he had been unable to remove the entire fetus from her uterus. Days later, vomiting and with a swollen abdomen and severe infection, Smith was taken to a hospital, where she was rushed into surgery.
Her mother, Johnnie Mae Smith, said she was shocked at the “nasty and dirty, filthy” conditions in the clinic. When her daughter took ill days later, she called Gosnell.
“I said, ‘What did you do to my daughter? … My daughter’s about to die,’ Smith said. “He said, ‘Take her to the hospital.'”
Gosnell turned up at the hospital with his checkbook, she said, aiming to settle immediately. Instead, she chased him away, vowing to sue. Later, her daughter got $3,000, after lawyer fees, from a $5,000 settlement.
It looks like one early consequence is that Gosnell has to find a new lawyer:
Defense lawyer William J. Brennan, who represented Gosnell during the investigation, said Gosnell “feels he has provided a general care medical facility in a fairly impoverished area for four decades.”
“That’s his belief,” Brennan said, “and he’s entitled to it.”
Gosnell told the magistrate he’s looking to retain another lawyer, and Brennan confirmed he’s not representing Gosnell anymore.
“I wish him well, but I am not taking this case,” Brennan said. “The doctor and I have had our run.”
Kevin McCullough argues today that the widespread revulsion created by the Gosnell case should cause people to take a much closer look at the abortion industry:
He was a monster. He was out of control. He deserves justice to the fullest measure–even if that were to mean the state took his life as a result.
It was as I was reading the details of the procedures he seemed to prefer to perform that I was suddenly struck by an overwhelming question that has not yet gone from my mind.
Why are we so outraged now?
The truth is, the procedure Gosnell preferred is not new. Third term, especially “late term,” abortions are performed the same way in overwhelming numbers.
Commonly referred to as “partial birth abortions” the procedure begins the same was as the “Gosnell abortion.” Inducing labor and beginning the delivery of the child is where most of the children are lost in both procedures. As many as 75% of the children lose their lives in the process of early induced labor. Leaving roughly 25% of the children involved to have their lives terminated through an additional step.
In partial birth abortion, the child is delivered to within two inches of being free of the birth canal. In the “Gosnell” he delivered the child completely.
But from that point on, little difference between the procedures existed.
Be sure to read it all.
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