The Kermit Gosnell Multiple Murder Trial: Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Trial Should Be a Front-Page Story

◼ Conor Friedersdorf and Megan McArdle write about this at The Atlantic and The Daily Beast, respectively; an excerpt from Friedersdorf’s item: - The Volokh Conspiracy

The grand jury report in the case of 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.” ...

Until Thursday, I wasn’t aware of this story. It has generated sparse coverage in the national media, and while it’s been mentioned in RSS feeds to which I subscribe, I skip past most news items. I still consume a tremendous amount of journalism. Yet had I been asked at a trivia night about the identity of Kermit Gosnell, I would’ve been stumped and helplessly guessed a green Muppet. Then I saw Kirsten Power’s USA Today column. She makes a powerful, persuasive case that the Gosnell trial ought to be getting a lot more attention in the national press than it is getting.

The media criticism angle interests me. But I agree that the story has been undercovered, and I happen to be a working journalist, so I’ll begin by telling the rest of the story for its own sake. Only then will I explain why I think it deserves more coverage than it has gotten, although it ought to be self-evident by the time I’m done distilling the grand jury’s allegations. Grand juries aren’t infallible. This version of events hasn’t been proven in a court of law. But journalists routinely treat accounts given by police, prosecutors and grand juries as at least plausible if not proven. Try to decide, as you hear the state’s side of the case, whether you think it is credible, and if so, whether the possibility that some or all this happened demands massive journalistic scrutiny....

◼ Why Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Trial Should Be a Front-Page Story - CONOR FRIEDERSDORF/The Atlantic

The dead babies. The exploited women. The racism. The numerous governmental failures. It is thoroughly newsworthy. (Please note: This post contains graphic descriptions and imagery.)

...Charged with seven counts of first-degree murder, 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.'"

One former employee described hearing a baby screaming after it was delivered during an abortion procedure. "I can't describe it. It sounded like a little alien," she testified. Said the Philadelphia Inquirer in its coverage, "Prosecutors have cited the dozens of jars of severed baby feet as an example of Gosnell's idiosyncratic and illegal practice of providing abortions for cash to poor women pregnant longer than the 24-week cutoff for legal abortions in Pennsylvania."...

◼ Why I Didn't Write About Gosnell's Trial--And Why I Should Have - Megan McArdle/The Daily Beast

◼ Everything You Need To Know About Kermit Gosnell And The Abortion ‘House Of Horrors’ Trial - Mediaite

[Editor's note: This article contains highly disturbing, graphic images. Please proceed with caution.]

◼ [For photos of Gosnell's late-term aborted babies, shown in the Grand Jury Report, click on pages 85, 102, and 115 of the report. Please proceed with caution, as these photos are highly disturbing.] (PDF)

◼ Kermit Gosnell Abortion Clinic Not Inspected for 17 Years: Comparing Botched Abortions to Adam Lanza Gun Control - Maggie's Notebook

Not only did the state of Pennsylvania not inspect the clinic of heinous abortion ‘doctor’ Kermit Gosnell who routinely slashed the throats of aborted babies who refused to die, the state completely stopped inspecting all abortion clinics in 1993 until and unless a direct complaint was made against one of the clinics – oh but wait…there were complaints against Gosnell’s killing field, and the state ignored them. The Liberal media has been close to silent until the last few days about the Gosnell story. Is it possible to compare press, or the lack of it, on Gosnell and Newtown killer Adam Lanza and come away with clear evidence of the injustice which the media feeds us daily? ◼ Hit and Run Blog did.