Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell found guilty of murder

[ariadneoliver]

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/13/kermit-gosnell-found-guilty-murder

He could yet get the death penalty for this.

[lubeybooby]

sounds like he wasn't so much an abortion doctor but a bloody psycho though

[ithaka]

That was a sad read - what an awful case. It sounds like there are a lot of poor desperate women out there - the reality of 'back street abortions' in the modern world.

[seeker]

The threat title is somewhat misleading.......

"Back street abortionist found guilty" might be better. It's too much to hope that it would be followed by "This case started a serious debate and review into the availability of a full range of obstetric and gynaecological services to all women, regardless of their age, race or socio-economic status"

[alienbanana]

Bloody hell, that's horrific!

[Abra1d]

I am sorry for the women but my sympathies are for those who had their spines severed. You'd think he might have allowed them some last comfort for their short lives--wrapped up in a blanket and put somewhere warm, or held by another human being who actually gave a damn.

Sometimes things are just wrong, regardless of age, race or socio-economic status.

[NandH]

horrid disgusting man, I hope they do to him what he's done to those babies!

[seeker]

Your sympathy should be with the desperate women.

[VivaLeBeaver]

Abortion provision in America is terrible. Unfortunately this is like
To fuel the anti abortion campaign rather than looking at improving provision so all women can access safe, regulated clinics.

[ariadneoliver]

seeker he wasn't a back street abortionist. It was a an official clinic subject to state inspections (although that being said the state had failed to carry out any inspections of clinics for some years)

[VivaLeBeaver]

I wonder why things were so bad at a "regulated" clinic.

I might be wrong but I suspect it comes down to money? Was he offering a cheaper service than other places and then cut corners? Was he just totally incompetent. It does sound like he was in total control of the clinic in a way which would never happen here as abortions here are obv "state controlled", by been in hospital. Well most of them, and in uk private clinics if anything you'd expect better service.

[Abra1d]

You seriously think that the foetuses who suffered in that way are undeserving of sympathy? That somehow they didn't feel pain (they seem to have been of a developmental stage where it was likely)? One moment they are safe and secure in their mother's bodies. The next moment they are gasping for air in a toilet. Before someone cuts their necks with scissors. And that's undeserving of pity?

[seeker]

Of course it's deserving of pity.

But I'm afraid that's what happens if women do not have access, for whatever reason to a full range of gynaecological and obstetric services.

This is not about abortion- it is about a system which failed.

[ReallyTired]

Someone who takes a pair of sissors to a newborn (abeit premature) living baby's spine is a murderer not an abortionist. This man is on a par with Harold Shipman.

It is right that he is punished according the laws of the US. The US is a democratic country and if they feel that he deserves the death penalty then that is their democratic decision.

Yes, the US needs better abortion services, but it is no excuse for killing a living viable baby.

[harvestmoonstruck]

He wasn't backstreet, it happens all the time in late term botched abortions in the US. The babies are either left to die or are killed by other brutal means. They call it 'post birth abortion', I call it infanticide and murder.

Gosnell became a millionaire, charging over 3000 dollars for a late term abortion. He exploited poor women and murdered their babies when they were born alive.

He's not alone sadly. There are many more Gosnells in what is a billion dollar industry in the US.

[seeker]

Evidence, please?

[topsyandturvy]

I dont understand some of the responses here.

I think what the man did is abhorrent.

But if you accept that 24 week abortions are acceptable, then what do you think happens when a live 24 week baby (or later under some circumstances in the UK) is aborted (ie not already dead in utero)? Obviously an aborted baby must be killed somehow.

[OneHolyCow]

Accepting late term abortions does not have to mean accepting these kinds of gruesome practices. There are humane ways of killing, if it 'needs' to be done. I see it as an extreme in an extreme climate where it is ever harder for a woman to get a timely abortion and easier to be exploited.

[OneHolyCow]

I also want to add that virtually all later term abortions are on foetuses that have very severe disabilities and are not viable. Not that this makes it more acceptable to behave in a cruel and callous way, but we have to be careful with the emotional arguments I think.

[Viviennemary]

What a horrific business. It hardly bares reading about.

[ReallyTired]

"Accepting late term abortions does not have to mean accepting these kinds of gruesome practices. There are humane ways of killing, if it 'needs' to be done. I see it as an extreme in an extreme climate where it is ever harder for a woman to get a timely abortion and easier to be exploited."

There is no "humane" or legal way to kill a newborn baby. In the UK foetus are injected with a poision to kill them while in utro. It is checked by utra sound that the foetus is dead before the remains of the dead baby are removed.

At 24 weeks a baby cannot survive without intensive care. Babies aborted at this point almost always have severe disablities incompatible with life. Late abortions are not usually social abortions.

The babies at the american clinic were viable - it was not an abortion. It was murder. This is way Kermit Gosnell is facing the death penalty.

I hope that a baby in the UK who had surived a possatassium injection to the heart and was viable would be quietly passed over to social services and adopted.