Posted on 04/12/2013 4:17:09 PM PDT by drewh
Kermit Gosnell, a Pennsylvania abortion doctor, is on trial for a lurid series of lurid crimes at his clinic. I can't bring myself to describe them, so I'll let Kirsten Powers do it.
Infant beheadings. Severed baby feet in jars. A child screaming after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure. Haven't heard about these sickening accusations?
It's not your fault. Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page. The revolting revelations of Gosnell's former staff, who have been testifying to what they witnessed and did during late-term abortions, should shock anyone with a heart.
NBC-10 Philadelphia reported that, Stephen Massof, a former Gosnell worker, "described how he snipped the spinal cords of babies, calling it, 'literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body." One former worker, Adrienne Moton, testified that Gosnell taught her his "snipping" technique to use on infants born alive.
The evangelicals in my twitter and Facebook feed are asking, justifiably, why these crimes seem to be nowhere in the media. You'd think that a lurid crime touching an issue of major national importance would be covered everywhere. And yet, there's been been very little. Mollie Hemingway has been asking reporters who ordinarily cover this beat why:
Then I decided, since tmatt has me reading the Washington Post every day, to look at how the paper’s health policy reporter was covering Gosnell. I have critiqued many of her stories on the Susan G. Komen Foundation (she wrote quite a bit about that) and the Sandra Fluke controversy (she wrote quite a bit about that) and the Todd Akin controversy (you know where this is going). In fact, a site search for that reporter — who is named Sarah Kliff — and stories Akin and Fluke and Komen — yields more than 80 hits. Guess how many stories she’s done on this abortionist’s mass murder trial. Did you guess zero? You’d be right.
So I asked her about it. Here’s her response:
Hi Molly – I cover policy for the Washington Post, not local crime, hence why I wrote about all the policy issues you mention.
Yes. She really, really, really said that. As Robert VerBruggen dryly responded:
Makes sense. Similarly, national gun-policy people do not cover local crime in places like Aurora or Newtown.
So when a private foundation privately decides to stop giving money to the country’s largest abortion provider, that is somehow a policy issue deserving of three dozen breathless hits. When a yahoo political candidate says something stupid about rape, that is a policy issue of such import that we got another three dozen hits about it from this reporter. It was so important that journalists found it fitting to ask every pro-lifer in their path to discuss it. And when someone says something mean to a birth control activist, that’s good for months of puffy profiles.
I know and like Sarah Kliff, and this seems harsh to me; there's a lot of news out there, and sometimes we don't cover everything our readers would like.
But Hemingway (who I also know and like), does have a point: the MSM has barely covered a story that could plausibly be named "The Trial of the Century". And that demands explanation. So I'll tell you why I haven't covered it.
To start, it makes me ill. I haven't been able to bring myself to read the grand jury inquiry. I am someone who cringes when I hear a description of a sprained ankle.
But I understand why my readers suspect me, and other pro-choice mainstream journalists, of being selective--of not wanting to cover the story because it showcased the ugliest possibilities of abortion rights. The truth is that most of us tend to be less interested in sick-making stories--if the sick-making was done by "our side".
Of course, I'm not saying that I identify with criminal abortionists who kill infants and grievously wound their patients. But I am pro-choice.
What Gosnell did was not some inevitable result of legal abortion. But while legal abortion was not sufficient to create the horrors in Philadelphia, it was necessary. Gosnell was able to harm so many women and babies because he operated in the open.
Moreover, as Jeffrey Goldberg points out, this has disturbing implications for late-term abortions. It suggests that sometimes, those fetuses are delivered alive. Worse, it hints at what we might be doing inside the womb to ensure that the other ones aren't. I don't think that this affected my thinking, since I don't support late-term abortions of viable infants unless the mother's life is in danger. But I understand why pro-lifers have their suspicions.
I could also offer Kliff's defense, that this is a local crime. But George Tiller's murder was also a local crime. There was no "national policy issue" involved: murder is a matter for state law. And there was no real question that if Tiller's murderer was caught, he was going to be tried and convicted for the killing. Nonetheless, lots of national journalists--including Sarah Kliff, for Newsweek--covered the killing and discussed what it meant for abortion provision nationwide.
If I think about it for a moment, there are obviously lots of policy implications of Gosnell's baby charnel house. How the hell did this clinic operate for seventeen years without health inspectors discovering his brutal crimes? Are there major holes in our medical regulatory system? More to the point, are those holes created, in part, by the pressure to go easy on abortion clinics, or more charitably, the fear of getting tangled in a hot-button political issue? These have clear implications for abortion access, and abortion politics.
After all, when ostensibly neutral local regulations threaten to restrict abortion access--as with Virginia's recent moves to require stricter regulatory standards for abortion clinics, and ultrasounds for women seeking abortions--the national media thinks that this is worthy of remark. If local governments are being too lax on abortion clinics, surely that is also worthy of note.
Moreover, surely those of us who are pro-choice must worry that this will restrict access to abortion: that a crackdown on abortion clinics will follow, with onerous white-glove inspections; that a revolted public will demand more restrictions on late-term abortions; or that women will be too afraid of Gosnell-style crimes to seek a medically necessary abortion.
I beleive MSM gerbalists will spend eternity in Hell listening to the screams of babies being murdered.
Murders they ignored and failed to report.
Oh, NO! It hurt her widdo feelings to read about it? and made her wanna puke? Good golly, what a wuss. How about Exposing the Truth? Is there not something compelling in that, if you are a journalist?
I think the newspapers and MSM are CRIMINALLY DERELICT in not reporting this. And they are absolutely part and parcel of the problem in this great country, currently, and one of the many dark forces that We the People must fight against with everything in our power if we are to take back America.
HLN has that Jodi Arias murder sex trial on cable 24/7.
Just today Megyn Kelly seemed to be offering the excuse that she’s pregnant and its just too horrific to talk about.
Leftist Regressives love dead babies, they look at them as sacrifices to their god, originally known as Molech, but now known as “women’s rights”.
Shame! Silence in the presence of unmistakable horror. Not to worry, they’re just blobs of protoplasm.
http://www.thebrennerbrief.com/2013/03/15/graphic-kermit-gosnells-house-of-horrors-3801-lancaster/
Nope, she might get pregnant and then kill the baby.
Put her away for life.
I have about had it with that Arias trial. Sick of it.
Hats off to Jake Tapper for reporting on this. Don’t look for the rest of the CNN Obamabots to mention it.
Isn’t the rallying cry “safe,legal and rare”? Women were
dying there. Why wouldn’t they want to keep the industry
they love “safe” by exposing “unsafe” clinics?
We know why. One thing Ann Coulter nailed was that liberalism is their religion and abortion in the sacrament.
Ghouls.
Empty press section: disgusting.
Toughen up, lady. I bet those poor, dead babies liked it even less.
Try being a human being and expose mass murder for what it is. Your mea culpa means nothing without relevant action.
My dad lives in Tallahassee, and I’ve read that rag. They don’t call it the “Democrat” for nothing...
Dame for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Megan, you didn’t write about it because you’re a hypocrite. The shrink types call it “cognitive dissonance” and you’ve got it by the barrel full.
From: Dickerson, Brian Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2013 3:03 PM To: xxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Waiting
I suspect this disappoint your desire to confirm a more sinister motive, but I submit to you that the reason I haven’t written about Mr. Gosnell is the same reason Philadelphia journalists don’t write about homicide trials in Detroit.
Brian Dickerson Deputy Editorial Page Editor Detroit Free Press/A Gannett Company
Planned Parenthood provides abortions, and the govt funds PP.
I would say that any pro-life taxpayer ought to be ashamed also, of something worse than silence.
Since they're not afraid of the Lord God Almighty, that'll do.
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