John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement:"This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone
Thomas Jefferson learned from the previous failed attempts at government. He understood actual history, the nature of God, his laws and the nature of man. That happens to be way more than what most understand today. A voice from the past to lead us in the future:
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe , we shall become as corrupt as Europe .
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
Some sobering thoughts by the first Secretary of State and third president of the United States of America. Well worth pondering.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
The Costs of Propaganda: SB 48 Ignores Real Significance of LGBT Movement
On December 13, 2010, State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) introduced California Senate Bill 48, also known as the FAIR Education act. Equality California is a co-sponsor of the bill. SB 48 is currently in the Senate Judiciary and Senate Education Committees. The text reads, in part:
“Instruction in social sciences shall include the early history of California and a study of the role and contributions of … lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, and members of other ethnic and cultural groups, to the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America, with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.”
Similar legislation has been introduced in the past, but was vetoed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar.
"Most textbooks don't include any historical information about the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) movement, which has great significance to both California and U.S. history," Leno said in a press release. He added: "Our collective silence on this issue perpetuates negative stereotypes of LGBT people and leads to increased bullying of young people."
While individual same-sex attracted individuals have certainly contributed to the good of society, it is undeniable that the “great significance to both California and U.S. history” of the LGBT movement in “contemporary society” has been the ongoing attempt at the destruction of marriage and the near self-extermination of male homosexuals through the AIDS epidemic.
Last week the homosexualist publication the Bay Area Reporter reported on the creation of the “Rainbow Honor Walk” in San Francisco:
“Fourteen men and six women have been chosen to be the first group of 20 LGBT luminaries to be honored with plaques along the sidewalks of the Castro, San Francisco's gay neighborhood.”
Presumably these are the kind of persons whose contributions SB 48 thinks should be recognized. But, as the BAR article mentions, of the 14 men so honored seven either committed suicide or died from AIDS.
Leno’s legislation also coincides with the release of the latest statistics on sexually transmitted diseases from the San Francisco Department of Public Health. These show an across-the board increase in the incidence of syphilis, rectal gonorrhea, and chlamydia. In San Francisco all STD trends are driven by men having “sex” with men. The report states:
“Overall reported chlamydia in-creased from 4,171 to 4,591 cases (10.1%) while male rectal chlamydia increased in 2010 from 740 to 913 cases for a 23.4% annual increase. Reported gonorrhea cases increased 9.8% from 1,787 in 2009 to 1,963 in 2010. Additionally, rectal gonorrhea among men also increased from 448 cases to 476 cases—a 6.3% increase. After recent declines in early syphilis seen in 2008, early syphilis sharply increased by 27.4% in 2010 from 519 cases to 661. The STD Prevention and Control Section of the San Francisco Department of Public Health recommends that all sexually active men who have sex with men be screened every 3 to 6 months for syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea.”
The ostensible rationale behind “anti-bullying” measures is the health and safety of same-sex attracted youngsters. But if that is in fact the rationale, shouldn’t legislation be introduced discouraging, or at least making clear the all too frequent consequences of homosexual behavior?
Pipeline News has more on SB 48, and recommendations on how Californians can make their concerns known.
Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney
“Instruction in social sciences shall include the early history of California and a study of the role and contributions of … lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans, and members of other ethnic and cultural groups, to the economic, political, and social development of California and the United States of America, with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.”
Similar legislation has been introduced in the past, but was vetoed by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar.
"Most textbooks don't include any historical information about the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) movement, which has great significance to both California and U.S. history," Leno said in a press release. He added: "Our collective silence on this issue perpetuates negative stereotypes of LGBT people and leads to increased bullying of young people."
While individual same-sex attracted individuals have certainly contributed to the good of society, it is undeniable that the “great significance to both California and U.S. history” of the LGBT movement in “contemporary society” has been the ongoing attempt at the destruction of marriage and the near self-extermination of male homosexuals through the AIDS epidemic.
Last week the homosexualist publication the Bay Area Reporter reported on the creation of the “Rainbow Honor Walk” in San Francisco:
“Fourteen men and six women have been chosen to be the first group of 20 LGBT luminaries to be honored with plaques along the sidewalks of the Castro, San Francisco's gay neighborhood.”
Presumably these are the kind of persons whose contributions SB 48 thinks should be recognized. But, as the BAR article mentions, of the 14 men so honored seven either committed suicide or died from AIDS.
Leno’s legislation also coincides with the release of the latest statistics on sexually transmitted diseases from the San Francisco Department of Public Health. These show an across-the board increase in the incidence of syphilis, rectal gonorrhea, and chlamydia. In San Francisco all STD trends are driven by men having “sex” with men. The report states:
“Overall reported chlamydia in-creased from 4,171 to 4,591 cases (10.1%) while male rectal chlamydia increased in 2010 from 740 to 913 cases for a 23.4% annual increase. Reported gonorrhea cases increased 9.8% from 1,787 in 2009 to 1,963 in 2010. Additionally, rectal gonorrhea among men also increased from 448 cases to 476 cases—a 6.3% increase. After recent declines in early syphilis seen in 2008, early syphilis sharply increased by 27.4% in 2010 from 519 cases to 661. The STD Prevention and Control Section of the San Francisco Department of Public Health recommends that all sexually active men who have sex with men be screened every 3 to 6 months for syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea.”
The ostensible rationale behind “anti-bullying” measures is the health and safety of same-sex attracted youngsters. But if that is in fact the rationale, shouldn’t legislation be introduced discouraging, or at least making clear the all too frequent consequences of homosexual behavior?
Pipeline News has more on SB 48, and recommendations on how Californians can make their concerns known.
Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney
Sunday, February 6, 2011
"Salvation by Latex"
Our young Catholics are such a blessing!
Over at CatholicVote.org Matt Bowman answers Tom Peters question of why the "Catholic Left" has been silent on LiveAction's recent exposes of Planned Parenthood.
Read Matt's excellent answer here.
Over at CatholicVote.org Matt Bowman answers Tom Peters question of why the "Catholic Left" has been silent on LiveAction's recent exposes of Planned Parenthood.
Read Matt's excellent answer here.
Friday, February 4, 2011
Three More PP Abortion Businesses in Virginia Exposed by LiveAction
H/t Thomas Peters, who writes:
"With nauseating predictability, Planned Parenthood’s operational procedure is to aid and abet the exploitation of women, in violation of the law, all in pursuit of their blind adherence to administering abortions to anyone. This is not only an ideological commitment: abortion is big business for Planned Parenthood. And for too long the government has turned a blind eye to their exploitation."
Peters also provides links to a letter to send to your representative (and how to locate your representative) asking him or her to support HR 217, which will defund this shameless and irresponsible organization. Here are the new Virginia Planned Parenthood videos:
Roanoke full footage:
Falls Church full footage:
Charlottesville full footage:
"With nauseating predictability, Planned Parenthood’s operational procedure is to aid and abet the exploitation of women, in violation of the law, all in pursuit of their blind adherence to administering abortions to anyone. This is not only an ideological commitment: abortion is big business for Planned Parenthood. And for too long the government has turned a blind eye to their exploitation."
Peters also provides links to a letter to send to your representative (and how to locate your representative) asking him or her to support HR 217, which will defund this shameless and irresponsible organization. Here are the new Virginia Planned Parenthood videos:
Roanoke full footage:
Falls Church full footage:
Charlottesville full footage:
"The absurd moral corner into which the Supreme Court backed us in 1973"
Matthew J. Franck writes in National Review about potential legal fallout from the Philadelphia abortion business case:
The Gosnell Case and American Abortion Law
Will abortion-rights advocates continue to defend the current regime?
"Over the years, Gosnell specialized more and more in late-term abortions, and his preferred method in cases of the most advanced pregnancies was to induce labor in the women who came to him. What resulted in hundreds of cases was a live birth. And thus the issue that has garnered the most attention to the Gosnell case: The doctor is charged with murdering seven babies born alive in his clinic, whom he, or one of his staff under his direction, killed in the first minutes of their post-natal lives by 'snipping' their spinal cords (that was the doctor’s own word for it) with scissors at the neck. The grand jury is morally certain there were many hundreds of “snipping” victims, but these seven are the only ones of whose deaths there is solid evidence today.
The women who came to Gosnell’s clinic — poor and desperate, late in their pregnancies, and willing for whatever reason to endure the horrors of his ministrations — wanted to be rid of their babies. This result he provided them. But it is difficult to locate the moral difference between the deaths Gosnell brought about in utero and those he accomplished post-natally. Does an unborn child at 26 weeks of fetal development have less moral standing than a born child at 25 weeks of fetal development? Does the latter’s living and breathing outside the womb for ten minutes, or ten seconds, confer a status that the former lacks? How can that be?
This is the absurd moral corner into which the Supreme Court backed us in 1973.
Since 1973, states have been powerless to prosecute an abortion at any stage of pregnancy, if the charge is merely that the procedure was undertaken too late, or after viability. Thanks to Doe, prosecutors have simply desisted from bringing criminal cases on such a basis. And unscrupulous doctors have been licensed to kill viable unborn children. Hundreds, if not thousands, are aborted every year. . . .
The Philadelphia grand jury didn’t get the memo, however. Their lengthy 'presentment' recommends that Dr. Gosnell be charged with 33 counts under a Pennsylvania law banning all abortions from the 24th week of gestation onward, except where a 'physician reasonably believes that it is necessary to prevent either the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the woman.' This is tight language about exceptions. Unlike the language in Doe, it really is an exception, not an obliteration of the rule. Where did it come from?
This provision was added to the state’s Abortion Control Act in 1989, under Gov. Robert P. Casey Sr. And according to a former Casey aide with whom I spoke, the prohibition on third-trimester abortions, with its very tight exception, was written precisely in order to bring about a confrontation with the on-demand abortion regime the Court created in Doe. If the state prosecuted a post-viability abortion at 24 weeks or later, the Supreme Court might be forced either to clarify that it really endorsed abortion at any time for any reason as a matter of constitutional right — or to step back from Doe’s broad language and say that the right to life of the unborn has some weight, at least after live birth is possible.
But in 22 years, not one prosecution has occurred under this provision of Pennsylvania law. Until now. In the Gosnell prosecution, Philadelphia district attorney R. Seth Williams has a choice. Does he go forward with the 33 counts of 'illegal late-term abortion' (a fraction of the actual number of such abortions Gosnell performed, but all that can be solidly proven under a two-year statute of limitations) — as well as the eight murder charges? Or does he quietly drop them? "
The Gosnell Case and American Abortion Law
Will abortion-rights advocates continue to defend the current regime?
"Over the years, Gosnell specialized more and more in late-term abortions, and his preferred method in cases of the most advanced pregnancies was to induce labor in the women who came to him. What resulted in hundreds of cases was a live birth. And thus the issue that has garnered the most attention to the Gosnell case: The doctor is charged with murdering seven babies born alive in his clinic, whom he, or one of his staff under his direction, killed in the first minutes of their post-natal lives by 'snipping' their spinal cords (that was the doctor’s own word for it) with scissors at the neck. The grand jury is morally certain there were many hundreds of “snipping” victims, but these seven are the only ones of whose deaths there is solid evidence today.
The women who came to Gosnell’s clinic — poor and desperate, late in their pregnancies, and willing for whatever reason to endure the horrors of his ministrations — wanted to be rid of their babies. This result he provided them. But it is difficult to locate the moral difference between the deaths Gosnell brought about in utero and those he accomplished post-natally. Does an unborn child at 26 weeks of fetal development have less moral standing than a born child at 25 weeks of fetal development? Does the latter’s living and breathing outside the womb for ten minutes, or ten seconds, confer a status that the former lacks? How can that be?
This is the absurd moral corner into which the Supreme Court backed us in 1973.
Since 1973, states have been powerless to prosecute an abortion at any stage of pregnancy, if the charge is merely that the procedure was undertaken too late, or after viability. Thanks to Doe, prosecutors have simply desisted from bringing criminal cases on such a basis. And unscrupulous doctors have been licensed to kill viable unborn children. Hundreds, if not thousands, are aborted every year. . . .
The Philadelphia grand jury didn’t get the memo, however. Their lengthy 'presentment' recommends that Dr. Gosnell be charged with 33 counts under a Pennsylvania law banning all abortions from the 24th week of gestation onward, except where a 'physician reasonably believes that it is necessary to prevent either the death of the pregnant woman or the substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function of the woman.' This is tight language about exceptions. Unlike the language in Doe, it really is an exception, not an obliteration of the rule. Where did it come from?
This provision was added to the state’s Abortion Control Act in 1989, under Gov. Robert P. Casey Sr. And according to a former Casey aide with whom I spoke, the prohibition on third-trimester abortions, with its very tight exception, was written precisely in order to bring about a confrontation with the on-demand abortion regime the Court created in Doe. If the state prosecuted a post-viability abortion at 24 weeks or later, the Supreme Court might be forced either to clarify that it really endorsed abortion at any time for any reason as a matter of constitutional right — or to step back from Doe’s broad language and say that the right to life of the unborn has some weight, at least after live birth is possible.
But in 22 years, not one prosecution has occurred under this provision of Pennsylvania law. Until now. In the Gosnell prosecution, Philadelphia district attorney R. Seth Williams has a choice. Does he go forward with the 33 counts of 'illegal late-term abortion' (a fraction of the actual number of such abortions Gosnell performed, but all that can be solidly proven under a two-year statute of limitations) — as well as the eight murder charges? Or does he quietly drop them? "
Thursday, February 3, 2011
She's So Mean to Uth!
Lila Rose, followed by Stuart Schear, Planned Parenthood's Vice-President of Communications on CNN. According to Life News Mr. Schear refused to appear with Miss Rose, and I can't say I blame him.
UPDATE: We are becoming "All Lila, all the Time." Could do worse. Don't forget to tune in to the Expose Planned Parebthood webcast at 8:30PM EST today:
http://www.exposeplannedparenthood.com/
Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney
NJ's Christie Vetoes Planned Parenthood Funding; NJ Senate Fails to Override
Good news from the Garden State, and their Pro-Life Governor Chris Christie.
From Life News:
Following the release of a video that has received nationwide attention showing Planned Parenthood staff at a New Jersey abortion center helping alleged sexual traffickers cover up their crimes with abortions and STD testing, Governor Chris Christie has vetoed a bill funding Planned Parenthood. ....
Christie has already yanked state taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood but the state legislature sent him a bill to restore the taxpayer funds.
Marie Tasy, Executive Director for New Jersey Right to Life, applauded the veto in an email to LifeNews.com.
“We thank Governor Christie for vetoing this bill. A3273/S2393 would have forced taxpayers to support the activities and expansion of an organization that was caught on tape aiding and abetting in the sex trafficking and abortions of minors as young as 14. In vetoing this bill, Governor Christie has ensured that NJ taxpayers will not be complicit in the sexual abuse and exploitation of poor women and minors under the pretense of ‘women’s health,” she said.
NJ.com reports that the New Jersey Senate failed to override the veto:
"An attempt to override Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of $7.5 million in family planning funds was defeated in the state Senate today, but the Democrats behind the effort vowed to fight on for pared down funding for the program.
From Life News:
Following the release of a video that has received nationwide attention showing Planned Parenthood staff at a New Jersey abortion center helping alleged sexual traffickers cover up their crimes with abortions and STD testing, Governor Chris Christie has vetoed a bill funding Planned Parenthood. ....
Christie has already yanked state taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood but the state legislature sent him a bill to restore the taxpayer funds.
Marie Tasy, Executive Director for New Jersey Right to Life, applauded the veto in an email to LifeNews.com.
“We thank Governor Christie for vetoing this bill. A3273/S2393 would have forced taxpayers to support the activities and expansion of an organization that was caught on tape aiding and abetting in the sex trafficking and abortions of minors as young as 14. In vetoing this bill, Governor Christie has ensured that NJ taxpayers will not be complicit in the sexual abuse and exploitation of poor women and minors under the pretense of ‘women’s health,” she said.
NJ.com reports that the New Jersey Senate failed to override the veto:
"An attempt to override Gov. Chris Christie’s veto of $7.5 million in family planning funds was defeated in the state Senate today, but the Democrats behind the effort vowed to fight on for pared down funding for the program.
Second Planned Parenthood Video: Richmond, VA
"There's, uh, some girls that we kinda, we manage..."
Katherine Jean Lopez writes in The Corner:
"Once again, a Live Action investigators walk into a clinic. The pimp announces he is running a prostitution ring involving 14 and 15-year-old girls, some of whom aren’t from the U.S. The clinic worker advises how adept the clinic is at working a 'judicial bypass process' for minor abortions, announcing 'we’re pretty good at handling, if someone, you know, doesn’t want someone else to know.' She stresses 'for someone who’s a minor that’s really good option. We do them probably once or twice a month here.'”
Katherine Jean Lopez writes in The Corner:
"Once again, a Live Action investigators walk into a clinic. The pimp announces he is running a prostitution ring involving 14 and 15-year-old girls, some of whom aren’t from the U.S. The clinic worker advises how adept the clinic is at working a 'judicial bypass process' for minor abortions, announcing 'we’re pretty good at handling, if someone, you know, doesn’t want someone else to know.' She stresses 'for someone who’s a minor that’s really good option. We do them probably once or twice a month here.'”
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
"Expose Planned Parenthood" Webcast Thursday
Miss Rose at the 2010 Walk for Life West CoastLila Rose, who has been in the news a little bit lately, will be joined by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, author, activist, and fromer Planned Parenthood franchise director Abby Johnson, 40 Days for Life founder David Bereit and others this Thursday at 8:30 PM eastern time.
You can register and watch the webcast by going here:
http://www.exposeplannedparenthood.com/
Party of Death "Forgets Nothing and Learns Nothing"
The Senate Democrats voted unanimously against the repeal of Obamacare.
Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell , who kept his promise to bring a repeal vote, said:
"The case against this bill is more compelling every day. Everything we learn tells us it was a bad idea. That it should be repealed and replaced. The courts say so. The American people say so."
Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney
Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell , who kept his promise to bring a repeal vote, said:
"The case against this bill is more compelling every day. Everything we learn tells us it was a bad idea. That it should be repealed and replaced. The courts say so. The American people say so."
Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney
“a baby's charnel house”
Abortion’s dangerous euphemisms
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, whose Philadelphia clinic has been called "a baby's charnel house" has been charged with murder.
GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACIES and legal bodies are not usually known for their vivid writing style. But “vivid’’ doesn’t come close to conveying the driving force of the grand jury report released last week by the Philadelphia district attorney in connection with the Women’s Medical Society, a long-established abortion clinic operated by Dr. Kermit Gosnell. The report was issued on the same day that Gosnell and nine of his employees were arrested on charges including murder, infanticide, and abuse of a corpse. In 261 pages of shatteringly clear prose, the grand jurors laid out their findings.
“This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women,’’ the report begins. “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. 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. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.’’
The report goes on to describe a squalid operation in which hygiene was ignored, equipment was broken, and late-term abortions were routine. Pregnant women were treated with callous disdain, often left for hours, semi-conscious and in pain, on dirty recliners covered with bloodstained blankets. Untrained employees administered powerful drugs to induce labor, and heavy sedatives to keep women from screaming.
Time and again, the grand jury says, late-term babies were delivered alive — fully intact and breathing — and then killed. Gosnell “called it ‘ensuring fetal demise.’ The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby’s neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that ’snipping.’ Over the years, there were hundreds of ‘snippings.’ ’’
The grand jury report came out just days before the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. By the usual newsroom calculus, that should have made the ghastly revelation of this “baby charnel house’’ — the grand jury’s term — a huge story. But outside of Philadelphia, it got only muted attention.
Even after the story broke, Philadelphia’s local Planned Parenthood chapter would only “condemn any physician who does not follow the law or endangers anyone’s health,’’ and said women in such cases should “complain to the Department of Health.’’ But the grand jury found that Pennsylvania authorities knew what was happening at Gosnell’s abortion mill, yet deliberately looked the other way. After 1993, with the accession of a prochoice governor, the Pennsylvania Department of Health stopped inspecting abortion clinics. “Officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions,’’ the report says, and decided “to leave clinics to do as they pleased.’’
Obviously, the prochoice movement is not responsible for the crimes with which Gosnell has been charged. But the blunt clarity of the grand jury’s findings could not contrast more sharply with the abstract euphemisms so often used to describe abortion.
In a statement marking Roe v. Wade’s anniversary, President Obama referred not to “abortion,’’ but to “women’s health and reproductive freedom’’ and the importance of keeping government out of “private family matters.’’ Planned Parenthood and NARAL’s Blog for Choice celebrated Roe for enshrining “a woman’s right to choose.’’
Since 1973, Roe has led to the destruction of more than 40 million unborn babies. It has led as well to a desensitizing debasement of our language. Americans have gotten so used to the idea of life in the womb being violently killed in part because they camouflage that killing with feel-good labels like “reproductive freedom’’ and “choice.’’ So pervasive is the mindset such language sustains that even when an alleged butcher like Gosnell comes along, the champions of “choice’’ offer only muted criticism.
Abortion is always a violent and awful thing, whether it happens in a squalid cesspit or in an immaculate doctor’s office. Reasonable people can debate whether abortion should be legal, and under what circumstances. But they ought to be able to do so without euphemistic evasions.
By Jeff Jacoby
Boston Globe Columnist
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, whose Philadelphia clinic has been called "a baby's charnel house" has been charged with murder.
GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACIES and legal bodies are not usually known for their vivid writing style. But “vivid’’ doesn’t come close to conveying the driving force of the grand jury report released last week by the Philadelphia district attorney in connection with the Women’s Medical Society, a long-established abortion clinic operated by Dr. Kermit Gosnell. The report was issued on the same day that Gosnell and nine of his employees were arrested on charges including murder, infanticide, and abuse of a corpse. In 261 pages of shatteringly clear prose, the grand jurors laid out their findings.
“This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women,’’ the report begins. “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. 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. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.’’
The report goes on to describe a squalid operation in which hygiene was ignored, equipment was broken, and late-term abortions were routine. Pregnant women were treated with callous disdain, often left for hours, semi-conscious and in pain, on dirty recliners covered with bloodstained blankets. Untrained employees administered powerful drugs to induce labor, and heavy sedatives to keep women from screaming.
Time and again, the grand jury says, late-term babies were delivered alive — fully intact and breathing — and then killed. Gosnell “called it ‘ensuring fetal demise.’ The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby’s neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that ’snipping.’ Over the years, there were hundreds of ‘snippings.’ ’’
The grand jury report came out just days before the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. By the usual newsroom calculus, that should have made the ghastly revelation of this “baby charnel house’’ — the grand jury’s term — a huge story. But outside of Philadelphia, it got only muted attention.
Even after the story broke, Philadelphia’s local Planned Parenthood chapter would only “condemn any physician who does not follow the law or endangers anyone’s health,’’ and said women in such cases should “complain to the Department of Health.’’ But the grand jury found that Pennsylvania authorities knew what was happening at Gosnell’s abortion mill, yet deliberately looked the other way. After 1993, with the accession of a prochoice governor, the Pennsylvania Department of Health stopped inspecting abortion clinics. “Officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions,’’ the report says, and decided “to leave clinics to do as they pleased.’’
Obviously, the prochoice movement is not responsible for the crimes with which Gosnell has been charged. But the blunt clarity of the grand jury’s findings could not contrast more sharply with the abstract euphemisms so often used to describe abortion.
In a statement marking Roe v. Wade’s anniversary, President Obama referred not to “abortion,’’ but to “women’s health and reproductive freedom’’ and the importance of keeping government out of “private family matters.’’ Planned Parenthood and NARAL’s Blog for Choice celebrated Roe for enshrining “a woman’s right to choose.’’
Since 1973, Roe has led to the destruction of more than 40 million unborn babies. It has led as well to a desensitizing debasement of our language. Americans have gotten so used to the idea of life in the womb being violently killed in part because they camouflage that killing with feel-good labels like “reproductive freedom’’ and “choice.’’ So pervasive is the mindset such language sustains that even when an alleged butcher like Gosnell comes along, the champions of “choice’’ offer only muted criticism.
Abortion is always a violent and awful thing, whether it happens in a squalid cesspit or in an immaculate doctor’s office. Reasonable people can debate whether abortion should be legal, and under what circumstances. But they ought to be able to do so without euphemistic evasions.
By Jeff Jacoby
Boston Globe Columnist
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