“Everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” -John 3:20
There are evils which are so indisputably evil that the perpetrator’s only strategy is to hide the truth in the hopes their actions won’t be brought to light. Such is the reason for the following picture tweeted out by Bucks County Courier-Journal writer JD Mullane in 2013.
The media’s absence at the trial of Kermit Gosnell is not difficult to explain. There is no claiming to be pro-choice when confronted with babies’ severed feet in jars; the mouths of those who would support abortion are immediately closed upon exposure to such evil. There is no coverage of the killing of six-pound babies that doesn’t bring an immediate end to every pro-abortion talking point.
So they didn’t cover it.
Neither have they covered the movie based on the trial. Despite opening as the 10th most watched film in the country and by far the number one in the independent category, only two major publications (Forbes and the Los Angeles Times) have written reviews of the movie.
As for the movie, it was well done. It remained true to the case, using much of the exact text from the case transcripts. The truth about Gosnell’s victims was told and his sociopathy clearly depicted.
Because Gosnell was convicted, it’s easy to think Gosnell was uniquely evil among abortionists. This is a mistake. That most abortionists use clean instruments, trained killers (as opposed to the amateurs employed by Gosnell), and only kill babies inside the womb doesn’t make them any less guilty of mass murder, and that’s exactly the argument made by Gosnell’s attorney.
A local abortionist brought to the stand by the prosecution explained that she only kills babies inside the womb, not outside as Gosnell does. In response, Gosnell’s attorney asked her what she did if babies survived her attempts to kill them, as babies occasionally do. The abortionist explained that she’d simply leave the baby on the table until he or she died. Gosnell’s attorney argued that the quick death brought by Gosnell’s scissors was actually more humane than allowing survivors to suffer a slow death as is standard among abortionists.
This was the most frustrating part of the movie for the viewer as we were left rooting for Gosnell to go to prison but also for the narrative pushed by the defense to win out. The standard murder trial desired by the prosecution would be of no particular interest to the pro-life activist. Abortion itself to be put on trial is what we need, on both a societal and legal level.
The other striking aspect of the movie is the behavior of the judge. At a pretrial meeting between her and the attorneys, she established that Gosnell’s would not be a case about abortion. She told the prosecutors that there are a lot of conservatives in Pennsylvania who would love an abortion-related case to overturn Roe v Wade and this would not be that case. The prosecution had no choice but to steer clear of making a case against abortion.
Such sentiment from judges is consistent with the accounts of many abortion activists who’ve spent time in court. In Monica Miller’s book Abandoned, she explains the judge in her case wouldn’t even allow her and her co-defendants to utter the word “abortion.”
If judges do this in any case involving abortion, they will have precluded the chance for a reversal of the legal and moral aberration that is Roe v Wade from the outset. Such actions taken by judges make a strong case for their illegitimacy. We’ve allowed judges to hijack the power to legislate abortion and suppress legal challenge for far too long. An example of what can be done about this was articulated Oklahoman gubernatorial candidate Dan Fisher who ran on a platform of rejecting federal courts’ authority to legislate abortion policy and signing a bill to abolish abortion in the state. (Learn more about Fisher’s campaign here and here.)
By the conclusion of the trial, a few of Gosnell’s older, born victims received their day in court and were brought justice. Gosnell’s thousands of younger, preborn victims did not. Don’t rest until every butcher of babies is brought to justice and the practice of killing babies in the womb to an end.
James Silberman is a guest contributor to the FPIW Blog from Gig Harbor, WA. James is Created Equal’s Media Relations Specialist and editor of the Created Equal Blog. You can also find his writing at The Federalist and on Twitter. He can be reached at [email protected].
