Gosnell nightmare: What if there are more?

by Bob Unruh
30th April, 2013

The whispering has started: What if Gosnell isn’t the only one?
The closing arguments in the Philadelphia trial for late-term abortionist Kermit Gosnell today mean that the jury soon will deliberate on whether he broke the law by removing babies from their mothers’ wombs and snipping their spinal cords, calling it an “abortion.”
The establishment media largely has ignored the horrors of the Gosnell case – the babies big enough to “walk” the doctor to the bus stop, the infants’ feet kept in jars, the remains kept in freezers. Some did report on the murder charges against Gosnell when the pressure mounted.
But the case has been portrayed by abortion supporters as a one-of-a-kind case by a rogue who didn’t operate the way the rest of the abortion industry does – with care, tact and an emphasis on women’s safety and health.
But over the weekend, LiveAction.org, which has conducted a series of undercover investigations of the abortion industry, released recordings showing Gosnell is not the only abortionist to advocate letting a child born after an abortion attempt die or killing it.
It was enough to prompt a media reaction.
In the New York Post, columnist Kyle Smith noted President Obama’s advocacy for children when he said, in support of gun control, “If there’s even one thing we can do to reduce this violence, if there’s even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try.”
Smith wondered what would happen if that standard of care was applied to the abortion industry.
“Obama bemoaned the influence of a rich, well-connected, absolutist influence group (the gun lobby) at the time. Will Gosnell’s murder spree cause the president to bemoan the influence of a rich, well-connected, absolutist influence group (the pro-abortion lobby) this time?” he wrote.
“Will he call for new laws? Better enforcement of existing laws? Will he say anything at all?”
Smith wrote: “Gosnell is not a one-off. A Delaware Planned Parenthood clinic recently suspended operations after five patients had to be rushed to the ER this year.”
And then there are the videos from LiveAction.org and its president, Lila Rose.
Here’s one:
One of the videos shows an undercover Live Action operative going to the Dr. Emil Women’s Health Center in the Bronx.
There, the undercover activist is told that if the unborn infant would emerge at home, after the abortion procedure is begun, she should “flush it.”
Also on video from another undercover sting-type operation by LiveAction.org is Washington, D.C., abortionist Cesare Santangelo, who told a potential patient that there would no be trouble with an infant who would survive an abortion procedure.
“Usually at this point in your pregnancy, it’s too early to survive, usually. It will expire shortly after birth. … It’s all in how vigorously you do things to help a fetus survive at this point,” he said.
“We would not help it.”
In context, Santangelo said: “Technically – you know, legally we would be obligated to help it, you know, to survive. But, you know, it probably wouldn’t. It’s all in how vigorously you do things to help a fetus survive at this point. Let’s say you went into labor, the membranes ruptured, and you delivered before we got to the termination part of the procedure here, you know? Then we would do things – we would – we would not help it. We wouldn’t intubate. It would be, you know, uh, a person, a terminal person in the hospital, let’s say, that had cancer, you know? You wouldn’t do any extra procedures to help that person survive. Like ‘do not resuscitate’ orders. We would do the same things here.”
Attempting to explain his comments later, Santangelo said in a LifeNews.com report he was trying to reassure the woman.
“What I said is, basically I wouldn’t do anything extraordinary. We would call EMS. We would call 911. But I wouldn’t do intubation or anything. … You let nature take its course.”
The videos reveal, according to Rose, that Gosnell is “just the tip of the iceberg.”
The Post’s Smith said Rose’s recording “raises the alarming possibility that some abortion clinic employees think it’s illegal not to murder any infant who survives an abortion.”
“A similarly horrifying attitude prevailed at the Philadelphia abortion clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who is facing five counts of murder,” he said.
“Gosnell both illegally aborted fetuses that were past 24 weeks and ignored the distinction between abortion and infanticide by inducing labor then severing the spinal cords of babies after they were born.”
The Bronx video reveals the pregnant woman asking, “I don’t want to, like, go into labor at home. Like, what if it like pops out, like, at home?”
“If it comes out, then it comes out. Flush it,” the Bronx abortion worker said.
At The American Catholic, Donald R. McClarey wrote: “One of the myths of the murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell is that he is not representative of the abortion industry. In regard to the manner in which Gosnell performed late term abortions, and his indifference to state laws restricting late-term abortions, Gosnell is typical.”
Then there were those who blasted the messenger.
At Media Matters for America, Jeremy Holden wrote: “Lila Rose, the proprietor of the group Live Action and a veteran anti-choice crusader with a long history of mounting deceptive campaigns targeting abortion rights, released a video on April 28 of an undercover activist’s experience at a New York women’s health clinic that she dishonestly said illustrated ‘illegal and inhuman practices’ that should lead to a murder investigation.”
The comments of abortion providers in the LiveAction videos indicate live births after abortions occur.
But Media Matters said the case is biased, “allowing anti-choice activists to make the entire discussion of reproductive health defined by an exceptionally rare procedure in order to achieve their political ends.”
Actress Patricia Heaton took to Twitter to express her opinion: “#Gosnell is just the less sanitary version of what goes on every day – the cheapening of human life. Lord have mercy.”
The Post’s Smith asked: “So, how many Gosnells are out there right now? Isn’t it in the interest of any of our various governments to find out?”
And he noted the absence of inspections at Gosnell’s business for years on end.
“Obama often speaks of the need to cool the rhetoric, to get opposing sides out of their trenches and meet in the middle to shake hands, Smith wrote. “His attempt to do so in the field of gun control was a miserable, indeed embarrassing, failure. But there are lots of abortion-related issues that enjoy broad public support from virtually everyone except extremist interest groups. Starting with the principle that abortion clinics should e at least a interesting to regulators as dogs or restaurants.”
Live Action’s previous videos have included documentation of gender-based abortions, a cover-up of sex trafficking, medically incorrect information dispensed by abortionists, a cover-up of sex abuse on children and how abortionists target race in abortions.