In a society which throws away the unborn as trash on a daily basis, defending their basic right to life is of utmost importance.
In the new book Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, investigative journalists and filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney delve deep into the story of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist who, among other horrific acts, nonchalantly murdered babies born alive after abortions.
Many of us, myself included, had heard of Kermit Gosnell and his crimes during the time of his trial, but only after the national media had been rightfully shamed into reporting on it. This book, however, is absolutely required reading whether you followed the trial and aftermath closely or not.
It is abundantly clear that the authors painstakingly sifted through mountains of difficult information in order to bring the truth to the general public.
The book begins by highlighting the absolutely shocking lack of interest that health officials had in the Women’s Medical Society, Gosnell’s clinic in Philadelphia. As the authors point out, were it not for a raid in early 2010 due to suspected illegal prescription drug use/sales from Gosnell’s clinic, the real horrors might never have come to light. Without the raid, Gosnell, who is serving life in prison without parole, might still be out there, killing.
From anyone’s point of view, Gosnell’s clinic grossly violated even the very basic standards of a “health” facility. Expired medicine was in abundance, one-use medical tools were used for multiple patients, moaning women sat in blood-stained recliners after their “procedures”, flea-infested cats roamed around, and pathways and normal exits were blocked. It was unsafe and unsanitary. It is not difficult to imagine that such a place held deadly secrets.
The 2010 drug raid turned into disgust at the conditions present within the clinic. That disgust turned into a thorough search for evidence surrounding the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a woman who died from having an abortion in the clinic in November 2009. That search resulted in discovering the remains of unborn babies, 47 in all, and even a shelf that had jars containing baby feet.
Unconscionable.
Investigators had to determine the death of these babies, cast aside in that “house of horrors.”
Assistant district attorney Christine Wechsler, a mother of four, said of the time at the medical examiner’s office:
“We had an assembly line of these babies that we knew nothing about. But you needed to know. We needed to know. Was [the head] crushed? Was it perfect? Was it round?”
“And we discovered they were perfect. They were intact,” she said. That proved the brains hadn’t been suctioned out of the babies’ skulls in utero. Their mothers had delivered the babies alive.
Investigators initially struggled to explain the cuts on the back of the aborted fetuses’ necks. If the hole wasn’t to suck the brains out in utero, they why would the stab wounds be there?
Wechsler had seen plenty of dead babies during her time in the DA’s homicide unit. She’d seen a lot of dead children, too. But her visit to the ME’s office to examine Gosnell’s victims left a deep impression, and the memory remains vivid even today.
Gosnell was a serial killer.
The authors lay out the case against Gosnell in tremendous detail, setting up each horrendous plot line, each accomplice, and sadly, each victim. The evidence of Gosnell’s crimes is overwhelming. The real number of victims will never be known. The “doctor” would manipulate ultrasounds to make the unborn babies appear younger than normal in order to stay just under the legal abortion limit, or so he thought. As you’ll see in the book, Gosnell misunderstood the legal abortion limit. He made notes on patient files about the fetal age which he believed would show his keeping with the law. In fact, his mistakes while attempting to cheat the legal requirements would only show he had committed many, many illegal abortions.
Before the chapter “Gosnell on Trial”, we are faced with reading the chapter titled “The Babies.” They are the forgotten ones whose murders were paid for by their mothers or other family members, and dumped as refuse by an individual who corrupted the very meaning of “doctor.” Their tiny bodies brought about the conviction of a monster who surely would have put more to death. The section about Baby Boy A is particularly difficult:
…Abrams was heavily sedated when she was taken into the procedure room and “the baby just came out.” Gosnell was in the room. The baby was about eighteen inches long.
Gosnell put the baby boy in a Tupperware container. He was still breathing.
Gosnell did not cut the baby’s neck straight away. He was so big that his arms and legs hung over the sides of the container.
Baby Abrams was born, then he curled up in a fetal position before he was stabbed to death by the doctor and moved in the Tupperware box to the next room. No one really cared where he ended up. This carelessness would come back to haunt Gosnell.
Cross and Moton both took pictures – pictures that ensured Gosnell’s conviction five years later. While Cross, Baldwin, and Moton were shocked by the site of Baby Boy A, Gosnell found the situation humorous. He joked to Cross, “The baby is big enough that it could walk to the store, walk to the bus stop.”
Though the book contains no pictures, the image of Baby Boy A, taken by two of Gosnell’s employees and shown to jurors at trial, is readily available on the internet. It is nothing short of horrifying.
The trial is presented as it was: a barrage of information from prosecutors showing Gosnell’s guilt, and a defense team made up of cowards finding ways to excuse their client’s murderous actions. On top of that, the authors explain how the pro-aborts connected with the trial didn’t want abortion to be given a negative light due to Gosnell’s individual crimes. How you can rectify abortion in any case is beyond me, but to these pro-aborts, they had “standards” and Gosnell did not.
There is no denying that the book is difficult, but most important of all is that it is necessary. If these lives are not a testimony to the inherent value of each life, then what is? If their stories do not move us out of our comfort zones, then what will? Each day adds several thousand unborn lives to the tally of abortion victims in clinics across the country. They have been been sacrificed on the altar of “choice.”
I commend the authors for their invaluable work to spread the truth. I pray that it will change hearts. I would be lying if I said I did not shed some tears as I read their book. It is a privilege and honor to remember the lives taken by Gosnell, and by the legal homicide of abortion in general.
One of the most powerful sections of the book is in the preface, by author Ann McElhinney. She details her previous abhorrence of pro-life activists. She did not trust them. Her experience with Gosnell changed all of that.
Nothing in the intervening years had shaken my feelings on the subject.
I now know that what is aborted is a person, with little hands and nails and a face that from the earliest times has expression. This humanity in all the pictures is unmistakable, the pictures of the babies that were shown in the Gosnell trial – first, second, and third trimester babies, in all their innocence and perfection.
I am absolutely certain that the dead babies spoken of in court were unique people whom the world will now never know. I hope this book and the movie go some way to mark the fact that they lived and in their short lives made a difference. Time will tell. This story can change hearts and minds; it has mine.
These babies sent Gosnell to prison. But more than that, they are the most eloquent evidence we have ever had of the reality of abortion.
The media have tried to ignore their stories.
We will not.
I join in with thousands of others and say: neither will we.
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