Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Kermit Gosnell, from a pro-choice perspective.

I know that many of my readers are here for my pretty makeup, my updates on my kids, information and camaraderie for those of us with special needs children, and the social/political pieces I do once in a while.  You're not going to find that today.  Today you're going to find the nitty-gritty and controversial. Today you're going to find outrage.

I am staunchly pro-choice. I'm liberal, I'm feminist, I'm pro-choice. I believe abortion should be legal and safe for every woman who may need one.

I'm conservative only in my belief that there should be an early cap on the gestational age of the fetus being aborted.

A human embryo becomes a fetus at approximately nine weeks of gestational age, and remains labeled so until approximately 20 weeks of gestational age, or when the fetus may be viable outside the womb. It is estimated that a fetus can feel pain as early as 18 weeks of gestational age.

Personally, I feel that abortions performed past 14 weeks of gestational age are too late.

Kermit Gosnell and his staff disagreed.

Dr. Gosnell, if we can refer to him as a physician (because he certainly didn't uphold the Hippocratic oath,) performed abortions as late as 26 weeks confirmed, with abortions as late as 30 weeks a strong possibility.

I'm not going to go into gory details. I'm not going to post public photos of the terminated infants, or tell you HOW he terminated them once they were delivered. (I use the term infants, because many of the bodies recovered were of viable babies, had they been delivered in a hospital setting with neonatal support services.) I'm not going to go into the details of his "trophies," his "disposal" methods, or his clinic conditions.

I am, however, going to tell you that as a pro-choice, liberal feminist, I am horrified.

I am horrified that he was able to convince his employees that this was alright. I am horrified that he made jokes about the infants he euthanized. Because really, that's what it came down to.  It was not abortion in most cases. It was cold-blooded euthanasia. Infanticide. Serial murder, complete with trophies from his victims.

The trial against this man, this monster, commenced on my birthday. In addition to being horrified by the events that led to this trial, I am horrified by the accusations being hurled regarding the lack of media coverage. Glen Beck asserts that the "liberal media" refused to cover the trial because they didn't feel that there was any wrong done. He referred to this monstrosity as "Margaret Sanger's dream come true."

None of that is correct. This is not what Margaret Sanger envisioned when she fought to make birth control available to all women who needed it. This is not what the supporters of Roe vs. Wade envisioned when they fought to have the legality of abortions upheld. This is not what any pro-choice, or even pro-abortion advocate envisioned. This is a crime against humanity.

I postulate that the media has been notably silent due to the complex nature of this atrocity. How does one approach such a thing rapidly with the aplomb required by a media outlet? The emotions evoked in anyone who has knowledge of this case does not lead to self-assured, unbiased reporting.

I know *I* have been silent for those reasons. Even formulating coherency in this post has taken me hours, and taken me through an exhaustive range of emotions. I cannot imagine how reporters who are dedicated to bringing the truth in a manner devoid of emotion are coping, especially now that there is public outcry over their inaction until this point.

Like I said, this is a human rights violation. This is a serial killer we're talking about. About the only thing that could have made this entire scenario more abhorrent would be charges of cannibalism on top of it all.

So no, I don't fault the media for being silent, any more than I fault myself for not having chosen to speak up until now.

I place the blame where it belongs, on the man who committed these sins, these evils. I blame him for shocking us into silence, into heartache, into an impotent rage over the injustice done to these women and these babies.

Remember, this is not a case of choice, this is a case of murder.

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