In short: pro-choicers averted their eyes to the crimes of a racist “doctor” whose worst acts are beyond imagining. They did so because making a fuss would give ammunition to the pro-life movement.

Only in America, you might say. But I’ve been gauging the response of British social media to the Gosnell case; many tweets reek of the same culture of evasion, to put it politely. Earlier this week I raised the question on Twitter with the Rev Richard Coles, a Left-wing pop-musician-turned-vicar who presents Radio 4’s Saturday Live and does a nice line in clerical whimsy. He said his views were “not entirely formed yet”. And in a second tweet: “Too much brouhaha at the moment.”

That says it all, I reckon. Gosnell was protected not just by pro-choice extremists such as Barack Obama, but also by run-of-the-mill liberals who, despite their distaste for late-term abortions, didn’t want to provide ammunition for the Sarah Palins of this world. So, for years, they took steps to avoid a “brouhaha”. The results are available for anyone to see online in the form of a heart-rending photograph of a baby killed by Gosnell. Unlike Mr Coles’s views on the subject, it is “entirely formed”.