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| Dr. Kermit Gosnell, an abortion doctor who is facing murder charges. |
Warning: This commentary contains disturbing images. Take extreme discretion when reading this.
I've avoided this controversy for the longest. I didn't care about it.
I wasn't interested in it. I felt this was another attempt by the conservative agitators to single out Black Americans and single women who decide to make a choice.
Let's first get this honest opinion out the way. I can testify to being considered pro-life (or commonly known as anti-choice). I am not in favor of abortions. I don't believe killing a fetus. However, I don't endorse the tactics of those who are anti-choice.
To make this clear: I don't support abortions but I don't decide on how a woman makes a choice. I don't want to push my beliefs upon a woman's choice to have one. When a woman makes a choice, it actually affects them. Seriously, it does. Once they have this, they go through a depression stage and eventual regret.
This isn't an easy decision. It's really difficult and you can't change what is done!
I can relate to being a person who witnessed an abortion. I dated a "married" woman last year. This woman was having an affair while her husband was spending time in the iron college.
She gotten pregnant and we both freaked out. She decided that she would want this. I disagreed and felt that the impact could be devastating for her, me and her husband. The decision to have the choice was squarely hers and not mine.
To go to the local clinic in a nearby suburb was very awkward to say at least. Abortion providers have provided armed security for the doctors, workers and patients. The moment we entered the building we were searched for weapons. We were told to show our identification, fill out a waiver to determine legal status and were expected risks if anything should happen upon this decision.
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| The office where Gosnell operated. |
The protesters came within an hour and were standing across the street with offensive signs and chants of religious extremism. They've harassed women and men who walked near that facility.
She had it. To this day, if not a rarely, we don't talk about it. It's a "painful" memory to say at least.
To this day, I've been more distant from the rest of the world. I've came to the conclusion it's a dog eat dog world. I've came to conclusion that I can't win! So I don't make no bones about staying off the social networks, keep limited associations with friends and family, and not be so giving!
I know I'm a caring and giving person. That's considered my weakness. But this and many other things that occur gives me a pause. It made me more reclusive and distant. It made me throw my hands up and say that's it: I don't care no more about people.
Why should I?
I mean how many of your friends look out for you in a time of need?
The decision was difficult. It made me more of a human. I made me realize that reality is.....well you know!
So I continue forth with a stronger mind and a better life. I have hopes of settling down with an eventual wife or girlfriend someday.
To this day, any abortion provider is in fear of a White extremist's assassination attempt. About four years ago, Dr. George Tiller of Kansas was one of the nation's only late term providers. He and two others provide late term for women who pregnancies were in danger. Tiller was gunned down by a White extremists while attending church service. Due to the constant agitation from Loserville and their host Bill O'Reilly (aka Bill-O), the abortion provider was killed in cold blood in front of his family. The shooter Scott Roeder was inspired by White extremists Lila Rose and Terry Randell. The man watched Loserville's propaganda campaign against late term abortion providers.
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| Gosnell and two nurses (wife and his daughter) were arrested. |
Bill-O denied his rhetoric motivated extremism. Since then, he's toned down slightly on his rhetoric and did express remorse for the death of Tiller. But you don't hear much about Bill-O in the news. We're more focused on Fox News (aka Loserville), Sean Hannity (aka The Guy Who Helped Obama Win), Matt Drudge (aka The Guy Who Throws Shit To The Wall), Glenn Beck (aka Chalk E Becker) and Rush Limbaugh (aka King Hippo).
These conservative agitators have inspired extremists rhetoric from those who have issues with race, gender, sexuality, nationality, religion, education, political and economic standings. They've created a poisonous environment not only in the junk food media, but also in Washington, DC.
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| The whistleblower. |
These individuals have created liberal retaliation (i.e. Huffington Post, Raw Story, TPM, Daily Kos, MSNBC, Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Stephanie Miller, Alan Colmes, and Al Sharpton).
These conservative agitators have made it more difficult for Republicans to reach out to groups they've gravely lost in the previous election.
The conservative agitators blame the junk food media for a "blackout" of this story.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia based abortion provider who is facing some serious charges.
The doctor practiced in an abortion clinic that was considered a horror according to clients and former workers.
The doctor was charged with capital murder in regards to his reckless handling of born children.
Republicans and their conservative allies criticized the rest of the junk food media for "lacking the courage" to expose such a horrible man.
Gosnell on his part singled out Loserville for the numerous death threats and reputation being dragged through the mud.
Gosnell is on trial for first and third degree murder, illegal prescribing of drugs, conspiracy related to corruption, and illegal abortions and related medical malpractice offenses, at his abortion practice.
Gosnell was arrested in January 2011 and charged—along with other crimes and various co-defendant employees—with eight counts of murder resulting from gross medical malpractice in treatment of patients at his clinics. The murder charges related to a patient who died while under his care and seven newborns said to have been killed after being born alive during attempted abortions. Through his lawyer, Gosnell denied the allegations.
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| The DEA and FBI photos of dead fetus in trash bags. |
The charges of murder were recommended by a grand jury against Gosnell and several employees.
CNN reported in March 2011 that prosecutors were considering seeking the death penalty.
Before the trial opened, all defendants apart from Gosnell and one other had already pled guilty to similar charges (including for some, charges of third degree murder); several had testified to "snipping" the spines of babies. One of these, Steven Massof, testified that he had personally done this over a hundred times, describing it as a "standard procedure" at the clinics.
The trial of Gosnell and the last remaining defendant began on March 18, 2013.
In February 2010 under a search warrant by investigators from the FBI and state police, Gosnell's office was raided. The raid was the result of a months-long investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Philadelphia Police Department, and the State's Dangerous Drug-Offender Unit into suspected illegal drug prescription use at the practice. The investigation had also revealed the suspicious death of patient Karnamaya Mongar in 2009, which had in turn brought to light further information about unsanitary operations, use of untrained staff, and use of powerful drugs without proper medical supervision and control.
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| This was a fetus with its head decapitated. |
Gosnell was arrested on January 19, 2011, five days after the certification of the Grand Jury's report. He was charged with eight counts of murder.
Prosecutors allege that he killed seven babies born alive by severing their spinal cords with scissors, and that he was also responsible for the death in 2009 of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old refugee from Bhutan, who died in his care. Gosnell's wife, Pearl, and eight other suspects were also arrested in connection with the case.
The Drug Enforcement Administration, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Office of the Inspector General also sought a 23-count indictment charging Gosnell and seven members of his former staff with drug conspiracy, relating to the practice's illegally prescribing highly-addictive painkillers and sedatives outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.
The third degree murder charge relates to Karnamaya Mongar; according to prosecutors, Gosnell's staff gave the 90-pound woman a lethal dose of anesthesia and painkillers. Gosnell's lawyer asserts that Karnamaya Mongar also had other drugs in her system that did not come from Gosnell's clinic, and that none of the infants were born alive.
The claim was rejected by the Grand Jury, based upon expert testimony that "it was the overdose of Demerol, not some mystery pill, that killed Mrs. Mongar."
The seven other murder charges are all of first degree murder; they relate to babies, whom staff have testified they saw move or cry after complete birth, and whose deaths are alleged to have resulted from subsequent lethal action.
They arise because of the "born alive rule", a principle of common law which stipulates that by default, for legal purposes, personhood arises – and therefore unlawful killing constituting murder becomes possible – immediately upon the victim's being born alive (several US states as well as Federal legislation have more specific laws to protect fetuses and newborn babies, see fetal rights and born alive laws in the United States). Steven Massof, a clinic employee who pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2011, testified that he (Massof) had snipped the spines of more than 100 babies after they had been born alive, and that this was considered "standard procedure" at the clinic; a number of other employees had also testified to the same point.
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| Leaked images of the dead fetuses and unhealthy work conditions at Gosnell's clinic. |
No physical evidence exists for five of the seven cases — charges are based on staff testimony and denied by Gosnell. A photograph exists of the sixth, who allegedly had a gestational age of 30 weeks, and the physical remains were obtained of the seventh.
The Grand Jury report states that "A medical expert with 43 years of experience in performing abortions was appalled. This expert told us, 'I've never heard of it [cutting the spinal cord] being done during an abortion'."
Some in the junk food media are wondering why they didn't cover this?
The Huffington Post reports that the judge tossed three of eight murder charges Tuesday in the high-profile trial of Gosnell. Some of the the babies were born alive at a clinic they dubbed "a house of horrors."
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, still faces the death penalty if convicted on four remaining counts of first-degree murder involving babies he's accused of killing with scissors after they were born alive.
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| The graphic pictures of aborted fetuses. |
Judge Jeffrey Minehart did not explain why he dismissed the three murder counts but apparently felt he had not heard sufficient evidence from prosecutors that those three babies were viable, born alive and then killed. Much of the evidence during the five-week prosecution case has come from the recollections of former staff members, though their testimony was bolstered by graphic photographs of some of the aborted babies.
Prosecutors argued that the babies were viable and that Gosnell and his staff cut the backs of their necks to kill them.
"Why would you cut a baby in the back of the neck unless you were killing it?" Assistant District Attorney Ed Cameron asked.
The defense questioned testimony from staffers who said they had seen babies move, cry or breathe. Defense lawyer Jack McMahon argued that each testified to seeing only one movement or breath.
"These are not the movements of a live child," McMahon said. "There is not one piece – not one – of objective, scientific evidence that anyone was born alive."
The judge also upheld murder charges in a patient's overdose death. Gosnell is charged with third-degree murder in the 2009 death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, a recent refugee to the U.S. who died after an abortion at hiss Women's Medical Society.
McMahon argued that third-degree requires malice, or "conscious disregard" for her life.
"She wasn't treated any differently than any of the other thousands of other people who went through there," McMahon argued Tuesday, in a preview of his likely closing arguments.
Prosecutors might concede that point themselves at closings, and argue that patients were routinely exposed to unsanitary, intentionally reckless conditions at the clinic. Former staffers have testified that patients received heavy sedatives and painkillers from untrained workers while Gosnell was offsite, and were then left in waiting rooms for hours, often unattended, before Gosnell arrived for the late-night surgeries.
Despite that, the workers testified that they had never seen a woman go into distress before Mongar. Yet a 2011 grand jury report alleges that dozens of women were injured at Gosnell's clinic over the past 30 years. Some left with torn wombs or bowels, some with venereal disease contracted through the reuse of non-sterilized equipment, and some left with fetal remains still inside them, the report alleged. And the report blamed Gosnell for an earlier maternal death that was not charged.
Cameron, in defending the Mongar charge, said it stemmed from the circumstances at Gosnell's clinic. They included the repeated medication dosages given by medical assistants; the doctor's absence during most of her two-day visit; and the hour it took to open a locked side door and take her by stretcher to an ambulance.
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| Graphic. |
The defense motions to dismiss the various counts Tuesday offered a preview of closing arguments, which could come within the next week, especially if Gosnell chooses not to testify. A gag order prevents lawyers from disclosing their strategy.
A string of character witnesses testified Tuesday afternoon for Gosnell's co-defendant, Eileen O'Neill. She is charged with three counts of theft for practicing medicine without a license. Minehart dismissed six additional counts of that charge Tuesday.
Eight other former co-workers, including Gosnell's wife, Pearl, have pleaded guilty to charges ranging from third-degree murder to racketeering to performing illegal, late-term abortions.
Minehart upheld charges that Gosnell violated Pennsylvania's abortion laws by performing abortions after 24 weeks and failing to counsel women 24 hours before the procedure.
Gosnell had also been charged with five counts of abuse of a corpse, for removing the feet from aborted fetuses and storing them in specimen jars. McMahon argued that his client did so to keep DNA samples, and Minehart agreed to dismiss those counts.
Many conservatives believe the junk food media is shielding the president, popular entertainers, and those who support progressive causes.
Yeah, I missed it. I didn't have the stomach to cover it. But still, we here at Journal de la Reyna seek justice for the many victims (i.e. mothers) who were abused by this reckless doctor. He gave the extremists in the anti-choice movement more ammunition to make the case against safe and legal providers.
It could inspire many more "right of god" extremists. These individuals are driven with a bible verse and a firearm. These people are now motivated to target others who may eventually be caught doing the type of horrors that landed Gosnell in the situation he's facing.
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Controversial agitator Chalk E. Becker makes his commentary about Gosnell.
