Abortion clinic regulation scandal in PA

Yesterday, I briefly posted a link to an article about Kermit Gosnell, a physician in Philadelphia who has been charged with the murder of a patient and sevenbabies. I knew I recognized the name but couldn’t place it at the time. After looking a bit more, I found several articles on the Gosnell’s background (e.g., this one from LifeNews).

Then I located the grand jury report on the case which included testimony of lawyers for the PA Dept of Health (beware – the report is not for the faint of heart). There is some confirmation of my suspicion that the reason abortion clinics had not been inspected related to policy. Here is a passage (pp. 161-164) where the report characterizes the testimony of attorneys for the DOH.

It was clear to us after hearing these witnesses testify that the decisions not to inspect abortion clinics or to license them as ASFs were not based on any serious interpretation of statutes or legal research. These lawyers were simply twisting and reinterpreting the law to explain policy decisions that changed with administrations, even though the laws did not. Dutton admitted in her testimony that the decision not to inspect was a policy decision, not one grounded in the law:

Q: Does it surprise you to know that some of the reasons cited for the failure to go out and do these inspections is that they believed that they didn’t have the legal authority to do so?

A: That would surprise me, yes. . . . To me, I would believe that they didn’t go out to do them because some policy had been set in the department at some point in time in the past that we were not going to do regular inspections of abortion facilities.

Dutton’s failure to recognize and treat abortion clinics as ASFs, and her silence as DOH shirked its duty to protect women and infants at abortion clinics, reflect a blatant refusal to enforce the law.

The DOH attorneys offered multiple explanations to attempt to justify why the department does not license abortion clinics in the same manner as any other ASF. None of their explanations comports with the law or with common sense.

Two of their “justifications” are barely worth comment. One lawyer told us that there is always “push-back” from doctors who do not want to be licensed as ASFs. Not only is this argument irrelevant to any legal analysis, it is unpersuasive. We learned that there are fewer than 30 abortion providers in the entire state. These doctors should not be able to exert that much push-back. Moreover, the legitimate abortion providers who testified before the Grand Jury told us that they already comply with standards as demanding as those for ASFs. Abortion rights advocates told us the same thing – that licensing abortion clinics as ASFs would not be burdensome because clinics that are members of NAF, or associated with Planned Parenthood, already comply with the highest standards of care.

A second reason proffered by DOH attorneys for not licensing abortion clinics – that abortion is “controversial” – is just insulting. Abortion is a legal medical procedure. Any controversy surrounding the issue should not affect how the law is enforced or whether the Department of Health protects the safety of women seeking health care.

The DOH lawyers offered up policy based reasons not to regulate abortion providers but the grand jury dismissed these excuses.

I am hoping an investigation of the DOH will now commence to discern who authorized the policy which illegally exempted abortion facilities from inspection. As the rest of the grand jury report makes clear abortion facilities are required to be inspected by state law regulating ambulatory surgical facilities (ASFs). However, apparently for decades, these facilities have not been treated as such and allowed to practice without oversight.

104 thoughts on “Abortion clinic regulation scandal in PA”

  1. This looks like a window into what women will have to endure should abortion be made excessively restricted or illegal.

    No woman in my life – friend, family, or colleague – has ever said that should they be faced with such a life-altering event, abortion would be the easy choice. Carrying a pregnancy to term, dealing with these life decisions, dealing with all of these uncertainties, as well as dealing with the CAUSE of the ambiguously-occurring pregnancy is enough.

    It doesn’t help that such women are looked upon with disdain (or worse, self-righteous pity) for making such a difficult decision. I know a woman in my family who had to make such a decision, and she chose ending the pregnancy. She was in her teens and was extremely niave about how easy it is to get pregnant. She speaks about her choice somberly, not with glee. But she knows it was the right choice to make in her life at the time, and she stands by it. She doesn’t consider it a thing of “pride,” but neither did it destroy her psychologically or take away her ability to have a family. In fact, she has a very healthy and large family today.

  2. It goes to trial. “But prosecutors believe Gosnell made plenty of money over a 30-year career using cheap, untrained staff, outdated medicines and barbaric techniques to perform abortions on desperate, low-income women.

    And they say he made even more on the side running a “pill mill,” where addicts and drug dealers could get prescriptions for potent painkillers. Authorities found $250,000 in cash under a mattress when they searched his home in 2010.”

    http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Worker-admits-cutting-10-babies-at-abortion-clinic-4365301.php?cmpid=usworldhcat

  3. This is not a training problem so much as it is an ideology problem.

    She speaks truth.

  4. Jaycuck,

    I’m not clear on what you mean when you say that oversight is tantamount to restriction?

    That is not my argument, that is what has been concluded by the prosecutors in the case. The believed that imposing close inspections of the physicians and facilities by the licensing body in charge would have an oppressive effect on the abortions provided at this site.

    t was clear to us after hearing these witnesses testify that the decisions not to inspect abortion clinics or to license them as ASFs were not based on any serious interpretation of statutes or legal research. These lawyers were simply twisting and reinterpreting the law to explain policy decisions that changed with administrations, even though the laws did not.

    Supervision was seen as a form of restricting access.

  5. Common ground is that the public deserves competent, even aggressive oversight when they are paying for it through taxes and fees.

    Every provider of medical and mental health services should have that scrutiny; but especially after complaints and malpractice settlements.

  6. @ Jayhuck,

    I think the argument/debate, if you want to have one, would center around a question like: would there be more botched abortions and deaths without free access?

    I don’t know how to argue that point either way…it seems unknowable. And I don’t think “free access” is part of the argument. Certainly not an argument I am trying to enter into.

    Failed oversight is certainly an issue; negligent and criminal perhaps in this situation. These bodies demand licensing fees from providers, they demand participation in continuing education, they set up ethical and legal guidelines. They are created by the political institutions to be protectors of the public.

    If a philosophy exists (as it is asserted) that oversight is tantamount to restriction; and this philosophy was in play in the negligent oversight of this provider; then, let us not give the general public, and specifically women seeking abortions, the false impression that their practitioner is properly scrutinized by the state.

  7. David,

    I’m not clear on what you mean when you say that oversight is tantamount to restriction? One Clinic in one states doesn’t equal a failure of the entire system, which is what you seem to keep asserting.

  8. @Emily K, who said to David,

    aaah.. i get it now.. it’s not enough for you that this is a tragic crime, and it’s not enough for you that one agree that it’s a tragic crime. One has to now fully denounce a pro-choice point of view in order to “truly” endorse prosecution of this butcher.

    My feelings about the legality of early term abortion have evolved over the years, but I think I’d like not to get bogged down in the how and why that has happened in this conversation.

    Instead, I’d like to call out the kind of response our libertine policies have produced, and your response is very much what I mean. Your response attacks the butcher, rightfully so, but such butchers can’t exist in a vacuum. Your outrage is never directed at those women who offer up themselves and especially their defenseless babies, as the meat.

    There was a time I’d have defended these “poor souls”. I blame my youth and the rigid ideology that youth sometimes brings to politics and social issues for ever having felt that way. But I digress by returning to my evolution on this. Back to the point.

    No, these women are indeed responsible, as much as the butcher, for what happened. The only exception I’d offer is for any woman who might be so cognitively handicapped that they’d be diagnosed as having severe retardation and therefore not held liable for their decisions.

    These women had all kinds of choices. Too bad they didn’t like any of them. Imagine that? Human beings who have something unexpected happen to them? Imagine that. Life not always going the way one plans (if one plans at all!)

    Bull. We live in a society, even in the cruelest neighborhoods and on the cruelist streets, in which one needn’t go without food or shelter, without help. I don’t need people lecturing me about services not available. That’s a piece of crap as an arguement. The fact is that many choose to go w/out.

    Who the hell says you don’t have any responsibility to society and to another life just because you didn’t like the choices you had? Huh? Who? Who the heck is so mushy-headed that they don’t see that women who “need” late-term abortions were as much the butchers as the man with the knife? Oh….you say that they were the victims? Bull, bull, and more bull. It’s this very kind of defending these women and their choices that has resulted in this kind of thing. We have become a society that calls people who don’t like their difficult choices “victims.”

    This is not turn-of -the- century America, in which some women who got pregnant under less than optimum circumstances, would have been cruelly derided. No, these are not women who have to live in Hester Prynne’s Puritan Boston in the 1600s, not women who’d be expected to pay penance for all their born days for a child born out of wedlock. Are you kidding me? Half of the children born today are born out of wedlock. These are not women whose children, were they allowed to have been born, would have had rocks thrown at them as they walked the streets, attended schools, etc. These are not children who’d be left to die. These are not women who could not have been given pre-natal care. These are not women who don’t have all kinds of birth control available to them. Did you forget that?

    Children like this are a few weeks from birth. Their mothers have only to wait a short time. There is free medical care provided them, care that is available from the get-go. Help all over the place from the school, if they are in school. Clinics, county hospitals and all kinds of programs. Counselors. Doctors. Nurses. There would be a meeting or two, then a signature on a piece of paper. A delivery in a sterile and safe hospital, paid for by fellow citizens. Then, their children would be cared for and placed for adoption. Their children would now be living with parents who adored them.

    I am sick to death of a culture of selfishness that has taken root in this country. A culture of “It’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not your responsibility. It’s not my responsibility. You can do what you want. You are the victim. I am the victim. I am sick of the people who teach this to others, as if they are some omnipotent, loving protectors. They aren’t. They are on a power kick. There’s a sick pathology to their offer to protect, but that’s a topic for another day, too.

    Here’s the bottom line about the responsibility of women who go to butchers and offer up their children as the meat: if these same women, young, middle-aged, old, whatever, break into your house or mine and steal from us, they’d be sought by law enforcement, and , if found, arrested and tried for their crimes. Depending on the locality, the sentences would vary, but they’d have been held liable for their crime, no matter their circumstances of life. If we expect that those who steal from us should be held liable for their actions, and if we expect that they demonstrate that they understand there is such a societal expectation of acceptance of responsibility for one’s actions, then what the hell ought we to expect from a woman who has decided she just couldn’t deal with going a few more weeks into her pregnancy to deliver a child? What kind of society has an expectation that people not steal, but no such expectation that they not kill? What kind of society produces people who make excuses for them?

    I can’t wrap my head around people like you who offer them up as victims, minimize their crime, and that’s what you have done. How do I know you have done this? I look at your words and read what you have written about the guy with the knife (you called him a “murderer” but made no such judgement about the women who knew their child would be killed weeks from birth) ; you choose to avoid discussion of their choice by offering up irrelevant arguments about the poor care others offered and about how you know that most women would never view abortion as an easy choice. You use this incident and others like it to argue the moral and legal necessity of keeping all abortion legal.

    You do everything but address the reality that in this, the 21st century, with sex education offered in the schools from an early age, with birth control practically placed in the purse of every girl (rural, urban, suburban) who has reached the age of fertility, with free counseling and care from the schools to the clinics to the community hospitals, with a society that no longer ostracizes those who get pregnant out of marriage, we have more un-wanted pregnancies, more abortions, than ever before.

    And we have more people like you who never, ever yell from the mountain top of the ultimate responsibility of the individual to avoid an unwanted pregnancy to begin with, to accept one’s responsibility should it nevertheless occur, to seek all the services offered to ensure the health of the life within, and to give up that new life to those who will give him or her continued life.

    All you can do sadly, is turn the discussion from one of individual responsibility into the hard choices women have to make, the sad choices they are sometimes forced to endure, the unfairness of others in holding them to a certain level of humanity. And, in a despicable attempt to change the discussion, you attack others for seeking to use one incident to rob people of their “rights.”

    A “Life-changing” choice, you call it. Yeah, I’d say so too. Pretty “life-changing” for those babies.

    There are many butchers here: the doctor, the women, and those who’d defend them.

  9. Too long or too intelligent for you to understand or respond to?

    Gee, NOW who’s making the “bully” comments.

    (i’m actually not offended or feeling bullied. I just thought it was funny to point out.)

  10. The believed that imposing close inspections of the physicians and facilities by the licensing body in charge would have an oppressive effect on the abortions provided at this site.

    I realized this after I posted my last message to you. Obviously changes need to be made to oversight and enforcing that oversight in this state.

  11. Common ground is that the public deserves competent, even aggressive oversight when they are paying for it through taxes and fees.

    Every provider of medical and mental health services should have that scrutiny; but especially after complaints and malpractice settlements.

    Absolutely!

  12. let us not give the general public, and specifically women seeking abortions, the false impression that their practitioner is properly scrutinized by the state.

    I agree David! Obviously oversight needs to be stepped up, but there are other ways for women to research these clinics and doctors – although I’m not suggesting this as a replacement for increased policing of these facilities!

  13. Now a staff member has changed sides:

    http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/16/planned-parenthood-staffer-jumps-ship-to-join-pro-life-group-live-action/

    A former director and eight-year employee of Planned Parenthood has left the organization to join one of its chief nemeses — pro-life group Live Action.

    Live Action announced Wednesday that Abby Johnson would be coming aboard in the role of chief research strategist. The announcement comes after a series of video exposés, released by Live Action, showed Planned Parenthood staffers aiding pimps in the sex trafficking of under-aged girls.

    A veteran of the pro-choice cause, Johnson says that incidents like those shown in the Live Action sting videos are not uncommon.

    “I can tell you from experience that Planned Parenthood often turns a blind eye to sexual abuse and trafficking – what you see in Live Action’s videos is not a rare occurrence,” Johnson said. “But ignorance is no defense, especially when it has turned their clinics into a safe haven for those who sexually exploit women and girls. This is not a training problem so much as it is an ideology problem. I am humbled and eager to begin this partnership with Live Action so that together we can expose the serious harm Planned Parenthood poses to the most vulnerable among us.”

  14. Gee, NOW who’s making the “bully” comments.

    Emily K,

    Actually I posed a question to you – not a comment. I think my question is fair and accurate. You can respond by letting me know I am incorrect or correct or not respond at all. Your comments, however, do have a bullying tone to them. Just didn’t know if you were aware of that.

  15. I don’t think the term “lone instance” applies well in describing this lengthy crime, overlooked for years despite multiple reports to supervising authorities.

    I think lone instance still applies. There are hundreds of abortion clinics that operate just fine and without incidences like this. I think Warren was absolutely correct when he said the problem here was one of oversight.

    I think the argument/debate, if you want to have one, would center around a question like: would there be more botched abortions and deaths without free access? I think there most definitely be more deaths.

  16. Ann,

    It’s now clear that Emily K is just a bull sh–tter. Her only “queerness” is really her ugliness.

  17. @ Jayhuck,

    what we know of your beliefs it is easy to see what you are trying to do,

    hmmm…I don’t think it is wise to assume the motives of others generally, if I have done that about you, I sincerely apologize. Please don’t do that to me.

    This is true, but this LONE instance does not mean that by and large free access doesn’t protect our daughter’s from butchers. No system is perfect, surely you understand that.

    I don’t think the term “lone instance” applies well in describing this lengthy crime, overlooked for years despite multiple reports to supervising authorities.

    Emily K makes my point by accident, above.

  18. It goes to trial. “But prosecutors believe Gosnell made plenty of money over a 30-year career using cheap, untrained staff, outdated medicines and barbaric techniques to perform abortions on desperate, low-income women.

    And they say he made even more on the side running a “pill mill,” where addicts and drug dealers could get prescriptions for potent painkillers. Authorities found $250,000 in cash under a mattress when they searched his home in 2010.”

    http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Worker-admits-cutting-10-babies-at-abortion-clinic-4365301.php?cmpid=usworldhcat

  19. Now a staff member has changed sides:

    http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/16/planned-parenthood-staffer-jumps-ship-to-join-pro-life-group-live-action/

    A former director and eight-year employee of Planned Parenthood has left the organization to join one of its chief nemeses — pro-life group Live Action.

    Live Action announced Wednesday that Abby Johnson would be coming aboard in the role of chief research strategist. The announcement comes after a series of video exposés, released by Live Action, showed Planned Parenthood staffers aiding pimps in the sex trafficking of under-aged girls.

    A veteran of the pro-choice cause, Johnson says that incidents like those shown in the Live Action sting videos are not uncommon.

    “I can tell you from experience that Planned Parenthood often turns a blind eye to sexual abuse and trafficking – what you see in Live Action’s videos is not a rare occurrence,” Johnson said. “But ignorance is no defense, especially when it has turned their clinics into a safe haven for those who sexually exploit women and girls. This is not a training problem so much as it is an ideology problem. I am humbled and eager to begin this partnership with Live Action so that together we can expose the serious harm Planned Parenthood poses to the most vulnerable among us.”

  20. Common ground is that the public deserves competent, even aggressive oversight when they are paying for it through taxes and fees.

    Every provider of medical and mental health services should have that scrutiny; but especially after complaints and malpractice settlements.

    Absolutely!

  21. Common ground is that the public deserves competent, even aggressive oversight when they are paying for it through taxes and fees.

    Every provider of medical and mental health services should have that scrutiny; but especially after complaints and malpractice settlements.

  22. The believed that imposing close inspections of the physicians and facilities by the licensing body in charge would have an oppressive effect on the abortions provided at this site.

    I realized this after I posted my last message to you. Obviously changes need to be made to oversight and enforcing that oversight in this state.

  23. Jaycuck,

    I’m not clear on what you mean when you say that oversight is tantamount to restriction?

    That is not my argument, that is what has been concluded by the prosecutors in the case. The believed that imposing close inspections of the physicians and facilities by the licensing body in charge would have an oppressive effect on the abortions provided at this site.

    t was clear to us after hearing these witnesses testify that the decisions not to inspect abortion clinics or to license them as ASFs were not based on any serious interpretation of statutes or legal research. These lawyers were simply twisting and reinterpreting the law to explain policy decisions that changed with administrations, even though the laws did not.

    Supervision was seen as a form of restricting access.

  24. let us not give the general public, and specifically women seeking abortions, the false impression that their practitioner is properly scrutinized by the state.

    I agree David! Obviously oversight needs to be stepped up, but there are other ways for women to research these clinics and doctors – although I’m not suggesting this as a replacement for increased policing of these facilities!

  25. David,

    I’m not clear on what you mean when you say that oversight is tantamount to restriction? One Clinic in one states doesn’t equal a failure of the entire system, which is what you seem to keep asserting.

  26. @ Jayhuck,

    I think the argument/debate, if you want to have one, would center around a question like: would there be more botched abortions and deaths without free access?

    I don’t know how to argue that point either way…it seems unknowable. And I don’t think “free access” is part of the argument. Certainly not an argument I am trying to enter into.

    Failed oversight is certainly an issue; negligent and criminal perhaps in this situation. These bodies demand licensing fees from providers, they demand participation in continuing education, they set up ethical and legal guidelines. They are created by the political institutions to be protectors of the public.

    If a philosophy exists (as it is asserted) that oversight is tantamount to restriction; and this philosophy was in play in the negligent oversight of this provider; then, let us not give the general public, and specifically women seeking abortions, the false impression that their practitioner is properly scrutinized by the state.

  27. I don’t think the term “lone instance” applies well in describing this lengthy crime, overlooked for years despite multiple reports to supervising authorities.

    I think lone instance still applies. There are hundreds of abortion clinics that operate just fine and without incidences like this. I think Warren was absolutely correct when he said the problem here was one of oversight.

    I think the argument/debate, if you want to have one, would center around a question like: would there be more botched abortions and deaths without free access? I think there most definitely be more deaths.

  28. @ Jayhuck,

    what we know of your beliefs it is easy to see what you are trying to do,

    hmmm…I don’t think it is wise to assume the motives of others generally, if I have done that about you, I sincerely apologize. Please don’t do that to me.

    This is true, but this LONE instance does not mean that by and large free access doesn’t protect our daughter’s from butchers. No system is perfect, surely you understand that.

    I don’t think the term “lone instance” applies well in describing this lengthy crime, overlooked for years despite multiple reports to supervising authorities.

    Emily K makes my point by accident, above.

  29. Ann,

    It’s now clear that Emily K is just a bull sh–tter. Her only “queerness” is really her ugliness.

  30. Gee, NOW who’s making the “bully” comments.

    Emily K,

    Actually I posed a question to you – not a comment. I think my question is fair and accurate. You can respond by letting me know I am incorrect or correct or not respond at all. Your comments, however, do have a bullying tone to them. Just didn’t know if you were aware of that.

  31. David,

    From your words lately and what we know of your beliefs it is easy to see what you are trying to do, however you are desperately trying to find fault in the wrong places. You tell us we aren’t talking enough about this issue as opposed to other threads, when there is really very little to talk about except maybe what could be done to prevent this from happening again and from expressing our own outrage at this incident, which almost all of us have.

  32. There is plenty to talk about…being horrified is a reaction that affirms our morality, but little else. This clinic existed in a context and a culture that promised that “free access” would protect our daughter’s from butchers.

    David,

    This is true, but this LONE instance does not mean that by and large free access doesn’t protect our daughter’s from butchers. No system is perfect, surely you understand that. Our police force fails daily to protect people, but that doesn’t make it by and large a good system for keeping order. It makes me happy that we are all outraged at this, as we should be, but don’t try to turn this into some huge cultural issue.

  33. Too long or too intelligent for you to understand or respond to?

    Gee, NOW who’s making the “bully” comments.

    (i’m actually not offended or feeling bullied. I just thought it was funny to point out.)

  34. @ Emily,

    One has to now fully denounce a pro-choice point of view in order to “truly” endorse prosecution of this butcher.

    Don’t recall that I demanded you come to that conclusion. Come to your own.

    This looks like a window into what women will have to endure should abortion be made excessively restricted or illegal.

    It appears that there was no restriction or supervision at this doctor’s office, so the above argument does not seem to hold logically.

    tl;dr…you are hilarious! Glib, sarcastic.

    Carole,

    It is an interesting argument to explore…the culpability of mothers who visited this doctor in a tolerant and generous society where half of all children are born out of wedlock.

    There is plenty to talk about…being horrified is a reaction that affirms our morality, but little else. This clinic existed in a context and a culture that promised that “free access” would protect our daughter’s from butchers.

    Warren,

    Hard to understand “Indeed.”

  35. @Emily K, who said to David,

    aaah.. i get it now.. it’s not enough for you that this is a tragic crime, and it’s not enough for you that one agree that it’s a tragic crime. One has to now fully denounce a pro-choice point of view in order to “truly” endorse prosecution of this butcher.

    My feelings about the legality of early term abortion have evolved over the years, but I think I’d like not to get bogged down in the how and why that has happened in this conversation.

    Instead, I’d like to call out the kind of response our libertine policies have produced, and your response is very much what I mean. Your response attacks the butcher, rightfully so, but such butchers can’t exist in a vacuum. Your outrage is never directed at those women who offer up themselves and especially their defenseless babies, as the meat.

    There was a time I’d have defended these “poor souls”. I blame my youth and the rigid ideology that youth sometimes brings to politics and social issues for ever having felt that way. But I digress by returning to my evolution on this. Back to the point.

    No, these women are indeed responsible, as much as the butcher, for what happened. The only exception I’d offer is for any woman who might be so cognitively handicapped that they’d be diagnosed as having severe retardation and therefore not held liable for their decisions.

    These women had all kinds of choices. Too bad they didn’t like any of them. Imagine that? Human beings who have something unexpected happen to them? Imagine that. Life not always going the way one plans (if one plans at all!)

    Bull. We live in a society, even in the cruelest neighborhoods and on the cruelist streets, in which one needn’t go without food or shelter, without help. I don’t need people lecturing me about services not available. That’s a piece of crap as an arguement. The fact is that many choose to go w/out.

    Who the hell says you don’t have any responsibility to society and to another life just because you didn’t like the choices you had? Huh? Who? Who the heck is so mushy-headed that they don’t see that women who “need” late-term abortions were as much the butchers as the man with the knife? Oh….you say that they were the victims? Bull, bull, and more bull. It’s this very kind of defending these women and their choices that has resulted in this kind of thing. We have become a society that calls people who don’t like their difficult choices “victims.”

    This is not turn-of -the- century America, in which some women who got pregnant under less than optimum circumstances, would have been cruelly derided. No, these are not women who have to live in Hester Prynne’s Puritan Boston in the 1600s, not women who’d be expected to pay penance for all their born days for a child born out of wedlock. Are you kidding me? Half of the children born today are born out of wedlock. These are not women whose children, were they allowed to have been born, would have had rocks thrown at them as they walked the streets, attended schools, etc. These are not children who’d be left to die. These are not women who could not have been given pre-natal care. These are not women who don’t have all kinds of birth control available to them. Did you forget that?

    Children like this are a few weeks from birth. Their mothers have only to wait a short time. There is free medical care provided them, care that is available from the get-go. Help all over the place from the school, if they are in school. Clinics, county hospitals and all kinds of programs. Counselors. Doctors. Nurses. There would be a meeting or two, then a signature on a piece of paper. A delivery in a sterile and safe hospital, paid for by fellow citizens. Then, their children would be cared for and placed for adoption. Their children would now be living with parents who adored them.

    I am sick to death of a culture of selfishness that has taken root in this country. A culture of “It’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. It’s not your responsibility. It’s not my responsibility. You can do what you want. You are the victim. I am the victim. I am sick of the people who teach this to others, as if they are some omnipotent, loving protectors. They aren’t. They are on a power kick. There’s a sick pathology to their offer to protect, but that’s a topic for another day, too.

    Here’s the bottom line about the responsibility of women who go to butchers and offer up their children as the meat: if these same women, young, middle-aged, old, whatever, break into your house or mine and steal from us, they’d be sought by law enforcement, and , if found, arrested and tried for their crimes. Depending on the locality, the sentences would vary, but they’d have been held liable for their crime, no matter their circumstances of life. If we expect that those who steal from us should be held liable for their actions, and if we expect that they demonstrate that they understand there is such a societal expectation of acceptance of responsibility for one’s actions, then what the hell ought we to expect from a woman who has decided she just couldn’t deal with going a few more weeks into her pregnancy to deliver a child? What kind of society has an expectation that people not steal, but no such expectation that they not kill? What kind of society produces people who make excuses for them?

    I can’t wrap my head around people like you who offer them up as victims, minimize their crime, and that’s what you have done. How do I know you have done this? I look at your words and read what you have written about the guy with the knife (you called him a “murderer” but made no such judgement about the women who knew their child would be killed weeks from birth) ; you choose to avoid discussion of their choice by offering up irrelevant arguments about the poor care others offered and about how you know that most women would never view abortion as an easy choice. You use this incident and others like it to argue the moral and legal necessity of keeping all abortion legal.

    You do everything but address the reality that in this, the 21st century, with sex education offered in the schools from an early age, with birth control practically placed in the purse of every girl (rural, urban, suburban) who has reached the age of fertility, with free counseling and care from the schools to the clinics to the community hospitals, with a society that no longer ostracizes those who get pregnant out of marriage, we have more un-wanted pregnancies, more abortions, than ever before.

    And we have more people like you who never, ever yell from the mountain top of the ultimate responsibility of the individual to avoid an unwanted pregnancy to begin with, to accept one’s responsibility should it nevertheless occur, to seek all the services offered to ensure the health of the life within, and to give up that new life to those who will give him or her continued life.

    All you can do sadly, is turn the discussion from one of individual responsibility into the hard choices women have to make, the sad choices they are sometimes forced to endure, the unfairness of others in holding them to a certain level of humanity. And, in a despicable attempt to change the discussion, you attack others for seeking to use one incident to rob people of their “rights.”

    A “Life-changing” choice, you call it. Yeah, I’d say so too. Pretty “life-changing” for those babies.

    There are many butchers here: the doctor, the women, and those who’d defend them.

  36. So we know the system works well with other forms of medical supervision.

    Why did it fail with properly supervising abortions?

    David Blakeslee,

    I don’t know. It would only be speculation to say they did know and chose to close their eyes to it. Further speculation would be that there are few places a woman can go to get a partial birth abortion and, while this place was deplorable and he, a murderer, it could be rationalized by the system that the abortion costs less than the funding of a child through future government money. I don’t know who chose to close their eyes or their reasoning behind it, but the aftermath is devastating and heartbreaking.

  37. aaah.. i get it now.. it’s not enough for you that this is a tragic crime, and it’s not enough for you that one agree that it’s a tragic crime. One has to now fully denounce a pro-choice point of view in order to “truly” endorse prosecution of this butcher.

    Emily K,

    Are you aware that your words in this comment have a bullying tone to them?

  38. aaah.. i get it now.. it’s not enough for you that this is a tragic crime, and it’s not enough for you that one agree that it’s a tragic crime. One has to now fully denounce a pro-choice point of view in order to “truly” endorse prosecution of this butcher.

    No, I live in a slightly greyer world; I do not believe that things like clinics that provide access to reproductive health care such as abortion are inherently “noble” or “un-noble,” unlike nearly all pro-life opinions I’ve come across who believe the latter about them. Rather, in an industrial world, they are only as good as the bodies that regulate them (even if this consists of only the body running the business), much like other areas of medicine, or the food industry.

    I hope this man experiences the justice he deserves. I don’t know a single pro-choice person who envisions this as the way abortion clinics should operate.

  39. Another way to think about this is that Gosnell didn’t get on a radio show when his methods were discovered.

    Unlike Britain psychotherapy (where Warren notes there are no licensing requirements); US medicine has all sorts of regulatory and oversight forces.

    How can all that fail when employees, insurance companies and former patients are all contacting this regulatory board?

    He was only discovered this time due to an investigation on a different issue, misuse of the painkiller Oxycontin. So we know the system works well with other forms of medical supervision.

    Why did it fail with properly supervising abortions?

  40. Here is a more thorough analysis:

    http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/01/23/kermit-gosnells-pro-choice-enablers-how-clinics-become-death-t/

    @ Emily,

    There is plenty to discuss if you review this article. If you apply the outrage on this site with a reorientation therapist who uses outdated procedures and narrow theories to this practicing physician who financially profited from each murder and had the support of National Organizations interfering with proper supervision you can see the problem.

    Consider, if you will, the outrage at this site over bullying and gender atypical suicide. The threads were multiple and went on for scores of posts. A loose assertion about the correlation between Christianity and bullying was repeatedly made and “new programs” urged.

    Here we have political correctness run amok, and political indifference; much worse than any NARTH practitioner and with the assistance of strong national organizations.

  41. David,

    From your words lately and what we know of your beliefs it is easy to see what you are trying to do, however you are desperately trying to find fault in the wrong places. You tell us we aren’t talking enough about this issue as opposed to other threads, when there is really very little to talk about except maybe what could be done to prevent this from happening again and from expressing our own outrage at this incident, which almost all of us have.

  42. There is plenty to talk about…being horrified is a reaction that affirms our morality, but little else. This clinic existed in a context and a culture that promised that “free access” would protect our daughter’s from butchers.

    David,

    This is true, but this LONE instance does not mean that by and large free access doesn’t protect our daughter’s from butchers. No system is perfect, surely you understand that. Our police force fails daily to protect people, but that doesn’t make it by and large a good system for keeping order. It makes me happy that we are all outraged at this, as we should be, but don’t try to turn this into some huge cultural issue.

  43. @ Emily,

    One has to now fully denounce a pro-choice point of view in order to “truly” endorse prosecution of this butcher.

    Don’t recall that I demanded you come to that conclusion. Come to your own.

    This looks like a window into what women will have to endure should abortion be made excessively restricted or illegal.

    It appears that there was no restriction or supervision at this doctor’s office, so the above argument does not seem to hold logically.

    tl;dr…you are hilarious! Glib, sarcastic.

    Carole,

    It is an interesting argument to explore…the culpability of mothers who visited this doctor in a tolerant and generous society where half of all children are born out of wedlock.

    There is plenty to talk about…being horrified is a reaction that affirms our morality, but little else. This clinic existed in a context and a culture that promised that “free access” would protect our daughter’s from butchers.

    Warren,

    Hard to understand “Indeed.”

  44. tl;dr

    Emily K,

    Too long or too intelligent for you to understand or respond to?

  45. So we know the system works well with other forms of medical supervision.

    Why did it fail with properly supervising abortions?

    David Blakeslee,

    I don’t know. It would only be speculation to say they did know and chose to close their eyes to it. Further speculation would be that there are few places a woman can go to get a partial birth abortion and, while this place was deplorable and he, a murderer, it could be rationalized by the system that the abortion costs less than the funding of a child through future government money. I don’t know who chose to close their eyes or their reasoning behind it, but the aftermath is devastating and heartbreaking.

  46. aaah.. i get it now.. it’s not enough for you that this is a tragic crime, and it’s not enough for you that one agree that it’s a tragic crime. One has to now fully denounce a pro-choice point of view in order to “truly” endorse prosecution of this butcher.

    Emily K,

    Are you aware that your words in this comment have a bullying tone to them?

  47. aaah.. i get it now.. it’s not enough for you that this is a tragic crime, and it’s not enough for you that one agree that it’s a tragic crime. One has to now fully denounce a pro-choice point of view in order to “truly” endorse prosecution of this butcher.

    No, I live in a slightly greyer world; I do not believe that things like clinics that provide access to reproductive health care such as abortion are inherently “noble” or “un-noble,” unlike nearly all pro-life opinions I’ve come across who believe the latter about them. Rather, in an industrial world, they are only as good as the bodies that regulate them (even if this consists of only the body running the business), much like other areas of medicine, or the food industry.

    I hope this man experiences the justice he deserves. I don’t know a single pro-choice person who envisions this as the way abortion clinics should operate.

  48. Another way to think about this is that Gosnell didn’t get on a radio show when his methods were discovered.

    Unlike Britain psychotherapy (where Warren notes there are no licensing requirements); US medicine has all sorts of regulatory and oversight forces.

    How can all that fail when employees, insurance companies and former patients are all contacting this regulatory board?

    He was only discovered this time due to an investigation on a different issue, misuse of the painkiller Oxycontin. So we know the system works well with other forms of medical supervision.

    Why did it fail with properly supervising abortions?

  49. Here is a more thorough analysis:

    http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/01/23/kermit-gosnells-pro-choice-enablers-how-clinics-become-death-t/

    @ Emily,

    There is plenty to discuss if you review this article. If you apply the outrage on this site with a reorientation therapist who uses outdated procedures and narrow theories to this practicing physician who financially profited from each murder and had the support of National Organizations interfering with proper supervision you can see the problem.

    Consider, if you will, the outrage at this site over bullying and gender atypical suicide. The threads were multiple and went on for scores of posts. A loose assertion about the correlation between Christianity and bullying was repeatedly made and “new programs” urged.

    Here we have political correctness run amok, and political indifference; much worse than any NARTH practitioner and with the assistance of strong national organizations.

  50. David,

    Amazing that this thread is being ignored….

    Are you looking for something to prove a point? Emily’s point is valid – this was awful – what is there to debate?

  51. Maulkin? Really David? That woman rages on about everything all the time. This article is nothing new from her. I’d think people would be tired of hearing your screaming all the time.

    Indeed – this story is reminiscent of times when abortion was illegal. That said though there is absolutely no excuse for what this doctor did (assuming of course he DID do it). It is murder plain and simple! It is a tragedy!

  52. David,

    Amazing that this thread is being ignored….

    Are you looking for something to prove a point? Emily’s point is valid – this was awful – what is there to debate?

  53. Maulkin? Really David? That woman rages on about everything all the time. This article is nothing new from her. I’d think people would be tired of hearing your screaming all the time.

    Indeed – this story is reminiscent of times when abortion was illegal. That said though there is absolutely no excuse for what this doctor did (assuming of course he DID do it). It is murder plain and simple! It is a tragedy!

  54. Whoops! Can’t do this ‘blockquote’ thing!

    Emily – I agree with your earlier statement re. ‘murder’ and ‘malpractice’, by the way.

  55. I disapprove of the notion of making abortion illegal (or indeed effectively illegal through ‘excessive restriction’); I also disapprove of not treating with respect those who have had to make a such a difficult decision. I too know such people.

    However, one cannot ignore the fact these situations involve two human lives; that is what makes both ‘entrenched pro-life’ and ‘entrenched pro-choice’ positions seriously deficient.

  56. This looks like a window into what women will have to endure should abortion be made excessively restricted or illegal.

    No woman in my life – friend, family, or colleague – has ever said that should they be faced with such a life-altering event, abortion would be the easy choice. Carrying a pregnancy to term, dealing with these life decisions, dealing with all of these uncertainties, as well as dealing with the CAUSE of the ambiguously-occurring pregnancy is enough.

    It doesn’t help that such women are looked upon with disdain (or worse, self-righteous pity) for making such a difficult decision. I know a woman in my family who had to make such a decision, and she chose ending the pregnancy. She was in her teens and was extremely niave about how easy it is to get pregnant. She speaks about her choice somberly, not with glee. But she knows it was the right choice to make in her life at the time, and she stands by it. She doesn’t consider it a thing of “pride,” but neither did it destroy her psychologically or take away her ability to have a family. In fact, she has a very healthy and large family today.

  57. Ann

    I suspect I share your bias – hence my description of a ‘legal framework’ as a ‘tragic necessity’.

  58. Given that (in my view) a ‘legal framework’ for abortion is a ‘tragic necessity’, such a legal framework must be very carefully designed – as far as possible taking into account the humanity of both the expectant mother and the unborn child – and applied with all due rigour, in order to minimise all possible adverse effects (physical, psychological and social) in those situations where an abortion is being considered.

    Richard Willmer,

    I have such a stuck in the mud personal bias about terminating pregnancies, let alone the horrible and tragic cases of partial birth abortions, that I honestly don’t feel like I can offer much to a reasoned discussion without sounding like I am, well, a stuck in the mud biased individual. Having said that, I do agree with you Richard, that if a decision is made to proceed with this very personal choice, then it does need a legal framework.

  59. Ann

    I agree that it is always very hard to articulate arguments on an issue as ‘difficult’ as abortion. Of course, medical facilities at which abortions are performed must be run to the very highest standards for the protection of the well-being of the women who, for whatever reason, feel compelled to use them.

    Given that (in my view) a ‘legal framework’ for abortion is a ‘tragic necessity’, such a legal framework must be very carefully designed – as far as possible taking into account the humanity of both the expectant mother and the unborn child – and applied with all due rigour, in order to minimise all possible adverse effects (physical, psychological and social) in those situations where an abortion is being considered.

  60. Whoops! Can’t do this ‘blockquote’ thing!

    Emily – I agree with your earlier statement re. ‘murder’ and ‘malpractice’, by the way.

  61. I disapprove of the notion of making abortion illegal (or indeed effectively illegal through ‘excessive restriction’); I also disapprove of not treating with respect those who have had to make a such a difficult decision. I too know such people.

    However, one cannot ignore the fact these situations involve two human lives; that is what makes both ‘entrenched pro-life’ and ‘entrenched pro-choice’ positions seriously deficient.

  62. What exactly is there to argue?

    Emily K

    Nothing. Perhaps that is why I was having a hard time trying to articulate a comment except to say how I personally felt. Thank you.

  63. Amazing that this thread is being ignored….

    David Blakeslee,

    I have tried to write a comment several times and cannot seem to get the words out so they will make sense. My heart hurts for any innocent and vulnerable child (I believe that life begins at conception – the heart begins beating at 3 weeks) who’s life has been terminated – for any woman who felt this was the only choice she had and was injured or who’s life was also lost. If she resolved to terminate her pregnancy, she should have been provided some counseling to prepare her for the consequences of that decision and given the proper medical care in an acceptable medical facility – that people knew about this and allowed it to happen and continue is the worst offense. I’ve tried and am still at a loss for words – perhaps the word unconsionable might be the tip of the iceberg.

  64. He murdered people and committed malpractice. The state failed to stop him and failed to regulate a place that should be spotlessly clean, employ caring people of the highest caliber skill, and consistently comply with the regulations the state failed to enforce. People are damaged and dead as a result of this man. He should be punished and the state needs to correct itself.

    What exactly is there to argue?

  65. Ann

    I suspect I share your bias – hence my description of a ‘legal framework’ as a ‘tragic necessity’.

  66. Given that (in my view) a ‘legal framework’ for abortion is a ‘tragic necessity’, such a legal framework must be very carefully designed – as far as possible taking into account the humanity of both the expectant mother and the unborn child – and applied with all due rigour, in order to minimise all possible adverse effects (physical, psychological and social) in those situations where an abortion is being considered.

    Richard Willmer,

    I have such a stuck in the mud personal bias about terminating pregnancies, let alone the horrible and tragic cases of partial birth abortions, that I honestly don’t feel like I can offer much to a reasoned discussion without sounding like I am, well, a stuck in the mud biased individual. Having said that, I do agree with you Richard, that if a decision is made to proceed with this very personal choice, then it does need a legal framework.

  67. Ann

    I agree that it is always very hard to articulate arguments on an issue as ‘difficult’ as abortion. Of course, medical facilities at which abortions are performed must be run to the very highest standards for the protection of the well-being of the women who, for whatever reason, feel compelled to use them.

    Given that (in my view) a ‘legal framework’ for abortion is a ‘tragic necessity’, such a legal framework must be very carefully designed – as far as possible taking into account the humanity of both the expectant mother and the unborn child – and applied with all due rigour, in order to minimise all possible adverse effects (physical, psychological and social) in those situations where an abortion is being considered.

  68. What exactly is there to argue?

    Emily K

    Nothing. Perhaps that is why I was having a hard time trying to articulate a comment except to say how I personally felt. Thank you.

  69. Amazing that this thread is being ignored….

    David Blakeslee,

    I have tried to write a comment several times and cannot seem to get the words out so they will make sense. My heart hurts for any innocent and vulnerable child (I believe that life begins at conception – the heart begins beating at 3 weeks) who’s life has been terminated – for any woman who felt this was the only choice she had and was injured or who’s life was also lost. If she resolved to terminate her pregnancy, she should have been provided some counseling to prepare her for the consequences of that decision and given the proper medical care in an acceptable medical facility – that people knew about this and allowed it to happen and continue is the worst offense. I’ve tried and am still at a loss for words – perhaps the word unconsionable might be the tip of the iceberg.

  70. He murdered people and committed malpractice. The state failed to stop him and failed to regulate a place that should be spotlessly clean, employ caring people of the highest caliber skill, and consistently comply with the regulations the state failed to enforce. People are damaged and dead as a result of this man. He should be punished and the state needs to correct itself.

    What exactly is there to argue?

  71. The reason the Pilkington thread is getting so many responses is because there are people defending her. Do you really expect people to defend this man?

  72. Maulkin uses her weekly article to address this:

    http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2011/01/21/the_philadelphia_horror_how_mass_murder_gets_a_pass

    He rationalized his macabre habit of cutting off dead babies’ feet and saving them in rows and rows of specimen jars as “research.” His guilt-ridden employees then took photos of some of the victims before dumping them in shoeboxes, paper bags, one-gallon spring-water bottles and glass jars.

    and this:

    As the report made clear: “With the change of administration from (pro-life Democratic) Gov. Casey to Gov. Ridge,” government health officials “concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.”

    Compare the outrage on this site about Reparative therapist ‘malpractice’ with near silence or ambiguous, sarcastic humor about this murderous malpractice.

  73. The reason the Pilkington thread is getting so many responses is because there are people defending her. Do you really expect people to defend this man?

  74. Maulkin uses her weekly article to address this:

    http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2011/01/21/the_philadelphia_horror_how_mass_murder_gets_a_pass

    He rationalized his macabre habit of cutting off dead babies’ feet and saving them in rows and rows of specimen jars as “research.” His guilt-ridden employees then took photos of some of the victims before dumping them in shoeboxes, paper bags, one-gallon spring-water bottles and glass jars.

    and this:

    As the report made clear: “With the change of administration from (pro-life Democratic) Gov. Casey to Gov. Ridge,” government health officials “concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.”

    Compare the outrage on this site about Reparative therapist ‘malpractice’ with near silence or ambiguous, sarcastic humor about this murderous malpractice.

  75. This is a case of mass murder for hire…the assassin is not crazy, he was paid to do it and in the end, he probably killed more the VT killer.

    No gun either.

    There is probably a sociological and political angle on this too.

  76. This is a case of mass murder for hire…the assassin is not crazy, he was paid to do it and in the end, he probably killed more the VT killer.

    No gun either.

    There is probably a sociological and political angle on this too.

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