Quote of the Day for Thursday, January 20, 2011:
From page 8 of the Grand Jury report of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania concerning the long-unfettered illegal practices of abortionist Kermit B. Gosnell, M.D:
Pennsylvania is not a third-world country. There were several oversight agencies that stumbled upon and should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago. But none of them did, not even after Karnamaya Mongar’s death. In the end, Gosnell was only caught by accident, when police raided his offices to seize evidence of his illegal prescription selling. Once law enforcement agents went in, they couldn’t help noticing the disgusting conditions, the dazed patients, the discarded fetuses. That is why the complete regulatory collapse that occurred here is so inexcusable. It should have taken only one look.
This is a gruesome report, which paints a picture of both bureaucratic incompetence and political depravity, while managing to miss the more fundamental causes: crass indifference and moral imbecility. Gosnell – and accomplices – is being charged with murdering viable babies following botched abortions, among other charges.
However, from the first paragraphs, it was evident to me that this is a poorly written, and not particularly well reasoned, document – high on dramatic flair, and full of disturbing facts, but lacking precision. I imagine that’s not uncommon for Grand Jury reports, but this one includes such luminous idiocy as this:
We believe, given the manner in which Gosnell operated, that he killed the vast majority of babies that he aborted after 24 weeks. (pg. 115)
The idiocy is by no means limited to the jurors. The report includes quotes (e.g. pg. 101) from “assistants” who made a living for years in this detestable operation, and who themselves personally participated in and performed the post-natal murderous act with scissors they all called “snipping,” and yet who took photographs of a 34-week old baby after he’d been killed, because they were disturbed by the killing, since the baby was so big. So big! Well, thank God for occasional bigness, I suppose.
A society that can routinely look the other way while evil like this gets perpetrated is a society in its own death throes.