Novelist Flannery O’Connor once observed that some audiences require a shock to appreciate the distortions in modern life, “to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost-blind you draw large and startling figures.”
America is receiving a much needed shock about abortion. For far too long, our nation has accepted this medical procedure – implicating the slaying of pre-born babies – as natural. But new-found publicity surrounding the Kermit Gosnell trial is exposing the distortion of abortion.
Over the last several weeks, a Philadelphia jury heard evidence about the abortion practice of Kermit Gosnell, a provider accused of brutally murdering babies born alive and causing the overdose of a 41-year old patient. Thanks to the media finally picking up the story, now, the rest of country is hearing about the horrific happenings in Gosnell’s clinic.
Americans have learned how Gosnell took scissors and snipped the spines of newborns as they emerged from their mothers still alive. The revelations are as condemning as they are appalling. As Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams noted, “A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law.”
Equally as shocking, Gosnell’s approach would have been perfectly legal, except for the fact that he killed the babies after they were delivered instead of killing them in the womb.
In truth, Gosnell’s gruesome ways are not much different from how abortions are committed on a daily basis in any of the hundreds of “reproductive health” clinics found in the United States. Babies are likewise torn apart in these places. The difference between Gosnell’s crimes and legalized abortion is approximately ten inches (between the baby being in utero and outside the womb).
Against this backdrop, on April 26, President Obama became the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood’s annual conference. Describing himself to these abortion advocates as “a president who’s going to be right there with you, fighting every step of the way,” Obama took the opportunity to criticize states like North Dakota that have passed laws protecting life in the womb.
What Obama has not criticized, or even mentioned, is Kermit Gosnell.
President Obama, Planned Parenthood, and other abortion supporters would like the public to believe Gosnell is an outlier, but the honest – albeit late – reporting on this Philadelphia massacre is taking hold. The hard of hearing are detecting a shout and the almost-blind are making out large and startling figures.
While investigators aptly depict Gosnell’s clinic as a “house of horrors,” the shocking details from the trial are making us realize: Every abortion clinic is a house of horrors.
Posted by Nate Kellum
