Damian Thompson

 

                       

Dr Kermit Gosnell: truly horrifying allegations of the murder of babies that the US media are playing down

  By Damian Thompson US politics Last updated: April 12th, 2013

     

The Atlantic's coverage of the story

This is written in haste, at the end of a day full of meetings. But British readers must know about the case of Dr Kermit Gosnell, which has been played down in the American media – possibly because the allegations of a homicidal abortion doctor don't fit into their pro-choice narrative. The following quotes are taken from Conor Friedersdorf's report in The Atlantic. You will need a strong stomach, but I urge you to read it all.

The grand jury report in the case of Dr Kermit Gosnell, 72, is among the most horrifying I've read. "This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors," it states. "The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths."
Charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, Dr Gosnell is now standing trial in a Philadelphia courtroom. An NBC affiliate's coverage includes testimony as grisly as you'd expect. "An unlicensed medical school graduate delivered graphic testimony about the chaos at a Philadelphia clinic where he helped perform late-term abortions," the channel reports. "Stephen Massof described how he snipped the spinal cords of babies, calling it, 'literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body.' He testified that at times, when women were given medicine to speed up their deliveries, 'it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.'"

You can read the whole Attlantic report here.