Kermit Gosnell’s defense lawyers rested their case on Tuesday, ending the five-week trial process and marking the beginning of jury deliberations. Gosnell, who was the lone practitioner at the Women’s Medical Society, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder of fetuses as a result of late-term abortions carried out under unsafe, unsanitary and illegal conditions in the Philadelphia, Penn. office.
The main arguments focused on whether Gosnell performed these procedures on women who were in their late second or third trimesters, well beyond the 24-week cut-off mark for abortions in Pennsylvania. The office had been a functioning abortion clinic and prescription drug provider for more than 30 years, and despite multiple inspections carried out by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Philadelphia Department of Public Health, the medical society was permitted to continue the abortion procedures. The incompetency of these government health departments points toward problems that are on a scale even larger than Gosnell and his gruesome practices.
The inspector’s failure to report the deplorable conditions of the facility are recounted in the 280-page grand jury report by the Philadelphia District Attorney, which outlined hundreds of cases about disturbing neglect and malpractice at the hands of Gosnell and his unqualified staff — including assistants without medical licenses and one 15-year-old high school student. These conditions were recorded by the inspectors and then promptly ignored.
The failure to report Kermit Gosnell by government officials, politicians and the media during his 30-year practice is baffling. The trial has only recently become a major story and some organizations, including ABC News, have chosen not to cover the case at all.
Those who do cover the story wrongly place the focus on the ethics of abortion. For instance, Anti-abortion advocates have taken this opportunity to use the horrifying incident to their own political advantage, claiming that this proves not only the immorality of abortion but also the willingness of pro-choice advocates to put the mother’s life at risk in favor of increasing access to abortion.
However, Gosnell’s practice is an exception, and only 1.3 percent of abortions carried out in America are classified as late-term or past 20 weeks. This trial should not be raising questions about moral integrity or beliefs — those on both sides of the abortion argument can agree that Gosnell acted in breach of a physician’s oath to work in service of the patient’s best interest.
In actuality, the disservice done to these women and the hardships they face in seeking safe abortions is what should be learned from the trial. The Women’s Medical Society was a clinic providing care to poor, uneducated minorities, ranging in their late teens to mid-40s.
The political controversy surrounding abortion clinics inhibits their safety from becoming a priority on any politician’s agenda. Therefore, they are not held to the same strict medical standards as any other medical practice, such as a hospital, chiropractor’s office or dentist’s practice. The outrages taking place under Gosnell’s supervision recall the situation many women were forced to face pre-Roe v. Wade, when safe abortion methods were not readily available in the United States.
Evidently, for many disadvantaged women, proper reproductive educational resources and qualified physicians are still inaccessible. Likely misinformed about the choices they were about to make, as well as the medical and legal consequences of these choices, and with nowhere else to go, these women were subjected to the greedy work of a corrupt doctor who took advantage of the gaps in abortion clinic regulation.
Nina Golshan is a contributing columnist. Email her at [email protected].
