Ann
McElhinney and Phelim McAleer
Regnery
Publishing, 2017
Review
by Robert A. Waters
Enter
the three-storied maze of rooms filled with ghosts. You'll find jars
of baby feet; pyramids of trash bags containing fetal remains;
skeletons of cats that died from thousands of attacking fleas; floors
with walked-on feces; bloody walls; and urine-stained furniture.
You'll enter room after room, chamber after chamber, and nook after
nook flooded with the foul stench of death.
But
most of all, you'll encounter the memories of children who lived a
few moments, or a few hours, then were snipped into eternity.
(“Snipping” was Dr. Kermit Gosnell's term for using scissors to
cut the spinal cords of infants who survived his abortion attempts.)
Another term he liked to use was “ensuring fetal demise.”
Gosnell
tells a sordid story that most of us can't imagine.
In
2013, Gosnell was convicted on three counts of first degree murder
and one count of involuntary manslaughter. The involuntary
manslaughter charge was brought when he killed Karnamaya Mongar, who
came to him for an abortion. The procedure was badly botched, and
she died a few hours later. Gosnell attempted to cover up the death
(as he had at least two others), and was successful for a time due to
the indifference of the Pennsylvania Department of Health and other
social service systems. The three first degree murder charges were
for babies born alive and murdered by Gosnell or his staff.
Dr.
Kermit Gosnell littered his Philadelphia abortion clinic with
cast-offs, employees barely living above the flatline, to coin a
phrase. For instance, Lynda Williams was bipolar, a drug addict, and
had only an eighth grade education, but she became Gosnell's
“anesthesiologist.” Assistant district attorney Joanne Pescatore
said Williams “was in charge of mixing the concoctions and giving
the anesthesia to patients while the doctor wasn't there.” In
reality, she rarely used Gosnell's cheat sheet that told her which
drugs to use, but administered what she thought was necessary. None
of his other employees were qualified for the positions they held.
This
proved fatal to Mongar, an immigrant from Bhutan. Williams
administered numerous doses of Demerol, anesthetics, and other drugs
in an attempt to sedate the frail patient.
In
addition to the Women's Medical Society abortion clinic, Gosnell ran
a pill mill, selling prescription drugs to dealers. (This, in fact,
was the reason for the initial criminal investigation of his clinic.)
He and his staff illegally sold Xanax, OxyContin, promethazine, and
Percolet to drug dealers.
When
cops busted Gosnell for drug crimes, they learned that he had been
killing live babies for thirty years. Because the statute of
limitations for infanticide is only two years in Pennsylvania, and
because he destroyed much of the evidence, Gosnell was charged with
only seven murders.
As
the case unfolded, Big Media attempted to ignore it. Several
reporters later admitted that the crimes did not fit their
“narrative.” Finally, a storm of emails, blogs from the
right-wing press, and the writings of a few respected columnists
persuaded the Washington
Post,
New
York Times,
CNN, and others to give in and cover the case.
After
his conviction, Gosnell was sentenced to life plus 30 years in
prison. Eight members of his staff received lesser sentences,
including his wife, Pearl, who sometimes helped at the clinic.
Despite
the sensationalistic title of the book, this is not a hastily-written
pot-boiler. The authors studied thousands of pages of court
documents, including the damning grand jury report. They interviewed
cops, attorneys, prosecutors, some of Gosnell's employees, and even
Gosnell himself. The doctor has shown no hint of remorse, and
insists that history will vindicate him.
Whether
you're pro-abortion or anti-abortion, I highly recommend this book.
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