GOSNELL: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer

Fake news!  The words bring to mind epic distortions and outsized emphasis on trivial events like Melania’s wardrobe or Presidential statements about crowd size.  The most devastating aspect of “fake news,” however, is the media’s ability to make a story completely disappear.  Exhibit one is the “untold story” of Kermit Gosnell, described by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer as “America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer.” 

The movie, largely extracted from their 2017 book, premiered to nationwide audiences on Friday -- but only after overcoming huge legal and industry hurdles.  Funding for the project was accomplished via nearly thirty-thousand individuals who contributed over 2.3 million dollars to a fund-raising site.  Advertising, however, was difficult, as many outlets, including Facebook and NPR, to say nothing of the film industry, created obstacles that reduced public exposure to the project.   

The film itself is riveting with a plot that moves along briskly and focuses primarily (a la Law and Order) on the trial of Dr. Gosnell.  Shock and awe isn’t the method used to communicate this appalling, many-tiered story.  Direct exposure to gore is rejected while still presenting indirectly the horror of Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic and illegal drug dispensary.

The reluctance to hold this and presumably any abortion clinic responsible for violations of the law (including obvious health code violations) is made clear by the grand jury testimony of a stodgy health inspectress who ignored a stack of complaints about Gosnell’s facility on Governor Tom Ridge’s politically-motivated orders.  Both the Philadelphia D.A. (portrayed capably by Michael Beach) and a preliminary judge were also adamant that Gosnell’s case not be about abortion per se.

The trial, however, inevitably confronted the jury with the reality of abortion -- a reality ironically presented by Gosnell’s defense attorney in his questioning of a respected doctor from a prestigious hospital who said, somewhat reluctantly, that the institution had performed about 30,000 abortions. Thanks to the media’s virtual blackout on this topic, most Americans don’t know that for decades more than a million abortions were performed annually in the U.S., and today the honest figure (not the CDC reported figure) stands near 900,000.   

Beyond the number of abortions performed, Gosnell’s attorney (played with villainous verisimilitude by Nick Searcy) skillfully led the stylishly clad physician through the D&E (dilation and extraction) procedure, brandishing huge forceps, scissors, and the long, poison-containing needle routinely employed in a legal abortion.  Counsel methodically pointed each instrument at the designated “targets” via a black and white representation of a baby in the womb.  His point was that there’s precious little difference between what Gosnell usually did in his ramshackle clinic and what well-equipped abortion-providers do.  The climax of his cross examination occurred when he asked the physician what would happen if, despite all their efforts, the baby came out alive.  Her chilling answer was that the baby would be given “comfort care” -- i.e. placed in a tray and kept warm till it died.  Gosnell’s attorney commented that snipping the spinal cord (something Gosnell did several and probably hundreds of times) seemed like a more humane procedure -- “withdrawn.”

The jury also saw, as the movie audience didn’t, a picture of “Baby A” whose spine was snipped by Gosnell, one of the three babies judged to have been born alive and murdered by the doctor.  The way the jury members recoiled and averted their eyes provided a dramatic representation of the way media and the public in general wishes to avoid looking at the reality of this “procedure” that is mendaciously placed under the benign rubric of “reproductive health.”  

Kudos should be given to Earl Billings for his deft portrayal of Gosnell, a man who calmly greeted police and FBI agents at his home, played Chopin on the piano while agents searched the premises, and expressed concern for the turtles in his filthy clinic while he was being held over for trial.   As I noted in my review of McElhinney and McAleer’s book, “Not since Hannah Arendt’s portrait of Adolf Eichmann has there been a more provocative analysis of evil.” Gosnell’s “greed and macabre callousness” existed alongside a “cheerful disposition that accompanied various acts of charity.”  In his overly self-confidant mind, he was simply taking a legally protected procedure a few steps further.  Gosnell justified his criminal acts with a dubious claim of good intentions.  

The heroic protagonists of the film are Assistant District Attorney Christine Wechsler and Detective James “Woody” Wood (portrayed by Sarah Jane Morris and Dean Cain) two persons who are appalled by Gosnell’s macabre collection of infant’s feet, aborted babies, and refrigerated milk carton containers filled with fetal remains.  Their clearly communicated shock and disbelief allows the audience to see second hand what isn’t and probably shouldn’t be shown on screen.  The institutional obstacles these two individuals must overcome to convict a mass murderer of three homicides is indicative of the willful blindness that’s baked into contemporary American society.

Nowhere is that blindness more apparent than in a media that refuses to publicize atrocities that might actually open eyes to the reality of abortion-on-demand.  The Philadelphia D.A. is convinced that the Gosnell case will become a circus with journalists portraying the prosecution as anti-choice, anti-woman, and racist.  What happens instead is an empty courtroom and media silence.  Toward the end of the trial, thanks to the efforts of a blogger-journalist, the film shows a packed courtroom.  That image, however, is misleading, since trial coverage was largely confined to Philadelphia.  Today, the gruesome story of Kermit Gosnell is still largely untold. 

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"  is also available on Kindle 

A Man for all Seasons and Brett Kavanaugh

A Man for all Seasons is a classic film that’s especially relevant in an atmosphere where law and truth have been discarded for the sake of political objectives--where an honorable man had his good name dragged through the mud to prevent a Constitutional tilt in the Supreme Court.

The protagonist in A Man for all Seasons is playwright Robert Bolt’s Thomas More, doubtless a more reasonable and saintly version of the actual historical figure who authored the book Utopia. Though both men are eventually executed by Henry VIII, Bolt’s More is more eloquent when it comes to matters currently facing the U.S. Senate and our country.

Early in the movie lawyer More is summoned to Cardinal Wolsey’s office to discuss King Henry’s pending divorce from Catherine who, in the then-Chancellor’s words, is “barren as a brick.” When More refuses to put political expediency over his religiously-informed conscience, Wolsey observes, “You’re a constant regret to me, Thomas. If you could just see facts flat-on, without that horrible moral squint; with a little common sense you could have made a statesman.” More replies, “Well, I believe when statesmen forsake their own private conscience for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.”

More’s warning calls to mind contemporary politicians who don’t apply their “personal” ethical beliefs to political decisions. This comment should lead one to ask on what moral basis, if any, these politicians make policy choices. Judging by convenient reversals on the crucial issue of abortion (cf. Jesse Jackson and Al Gore) it’s reasonable to conclude that personal and political advantage is the primary consideration. (Note that only twenty-five years ago former Nevada Senator Harry Reid was railing against illegal immigration and citizenship for anchor babies. I doubt that a moral epiphany changed his tune.) 

Later in the film More confronts his daughter’s suitor, Roper, who wants to arrest the ambitious, recently-graduated Richard Rich who seeks a career-advancing position in court. More vigorously declines to pursue the suspicious Rich because he hasn’t broken any law. Roper, himself a good-hearted hothead, exclaims, “So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!” The soon to become Chancellor of England, responds, “Yes, what would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” Roper retorts, “I’d cut down every law in England to do that!” Then comes More’s eloquent conclusion: “Oh?  And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?  This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man’s laws not God’s, and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?  Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.”

As honest observers should concede, most Constitutional limitations have long since been “cut down” by clever judicial machinations (“penumbras formed by emanations”), but in the Judicial Committee and among leftists nationwide the very “presumption of innocence” has come under attack, ditched for the politically motivated requirement that a man with a spotless adult resume disprove an alleged assault at an unknown location 35, -6, or -7 years ago. Even the rational  assessment of evidence is being exchanged, at least for the politically convenient moment, for the “believability” of an accuser whose claims are weighed on a tilted scale of sympathetic emotion—as if sworn testimony about an alleged crime were akin to a Broadway audition. 

Forget rigorous cross-examination. That’s now called “blaming the victim”—a phrase that presupposes the allegation’s veracity. In this brave new lawless world the benefit of the doubt goes to a witness with no corroborating evidence whose charge is the product of a recovered memory decades after the event—someone whose credibility is further diminished by numerous contradictory and false statements. To rephrase More’s challenge to Roper: Who will be able to stand upright with legal standards that are as capricious as the political winds? 

Robert Bolt’s drama ends with a trial in which More seems to be getting the better of his legal adversary when the ambitious Richard Rich appears in court and provides perjured testimony that seals the prisoner’s fate.  As the witness is exiting, More notes a chain of office around his neck and is informed that Rich had been appointed Attorney General of Wales.  More comments, “Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world—but  for Wales?”

It may be that Blasey-Ford’s testimony was, as Joe DiGenova believes, pure fiction and thus equivalent in mendacity to Richard Rich’s perjury. Instead of Wales she hopes to receive, at the least, Anita Hill sainthood status among the left, and if her accusation had prevailed, Joan of Arc veneration as the brave woman who took down an evil Constitutionalist. Even if she actually believes what she says is true, it’s clear to anyone with an objective mind that her testimony wasn’t sufficient to prove anything. As prosecutor Rachel Mitchell concluded after calmly interviewing (not cross-examining) Dr. Ford, no "reasonable prosecutor would bring this case based on the evidence before the Committee."

The sentence against More is handed down by a jury that needn’t heed the bench’s charge to “retire and consider the evidence.”  Henry’s legal hatchet-man, Cromwell, contravenes the judges’ instructions: “Considering the evidence, it shouldn’t be necessary for them to retire.” Cromwell then asks the jury foreman ominously, “Is it necessary?” The group settles back in their seats, huddles briefly, then renders the politically required verdict: “Guilty, my lord.”

In the Kavanaugh hearing Democrats on the Judical Committee assumed the roles of both prosecutors and jury—prosecutors without moral scruples and a jury for which no deliberation is necessary, only achieving their anti-Constitutionalist political objective. These senators—one of whom lied about his Vietnam service (Blumenthal) and another (Booker) fabricated a street-hustling Socrates pal named T-Bone who never really existed—pose as serious moral guardians while engaging in the most flagrant character assassination in the sordid recent history of the Judiciary Committee. The irony and duplicity is hard to overstate. 

At film’s end, accepting the unjust verdict against him with dignity and grace, More’s head is chopped off. It was refreshing this time to see a just (even if narrow) verdict, a verdict that did not reward rapacious mendacity but rather upheld legal precedent. It would be even more  gratifying if upcoming political and legal verdicts punish those who willfully provided false testimony under oath. In the meantime we may take courage from the words More speaks to his daughter while confined in prison: “If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that abhorrence, anger, pride, and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice, and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes.”    

Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?"  is also available on Kindle