All abortion clinics are houses of horror

LIMA, Ohio — Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who ran an abortion clinic in Philadelphia from 1979 to 2010, was arrested and charged with killing a patient and seven babies.

Apparently, according to officials, Gosnell’s clinic was a filthy, foul-smelling “house of horrors” that was overlooked by regulators.

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, who said he might seek the death penalty, told reporters, “My comprehension of the English language can’t adequately describe the barbaric nature of Dr. Gosnell.”

Gosnell was charged with a whole host of crimes, including murder, infanticide, conspiracy and abortion at 24 or more weeks.

Pennsylvania law prohibits abortions after 24 weeks, which is basically the third trimester, except, of course, to save the life of the mother or avoid serious health risk to her. That caveat to the law exists to satisfy U.S. Supreme Court requirements.

Williams said Gosnell would induce labor, deliver the viable, living babies, “and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord.”

Gosnell was only discovered when the clinic was raided because of suspected controlled drug violations.

To say that Gosnell’s clinic was a failure of the regulatory system is an understatement. In the last 31 years, state regulators only inspected the clinic five times despite 46 lawsuits filed against the clinic.

However, I bring this up not to pillory the regulatory agencies that clearly should have seen this problem many years ago.

I bring this up because I find it odd that some pro-abortion folks seem to be appalled by this. It is hypocritical to support killing babies by one procedure and be appalled by another.
Why is cutting the spinal cord of a baby any different than dismembering the same baby in the uterus and then sucking it out in pieces? Or, for that matter, partially delivering the baby before stabbing it to death?

In reality, the distinction is a fine line.

The pro-abortion crowd is filled with people who like to rationalize their position, and masking the horrors of abortion, with some intellectual claptrap about protecting the rights of the mother to “choose.”

That argument is simply wrong. Killing a baby is not a personal choice. Government has one legitimate responsibility and that is to protect the rights of its citizens. That duty is most important when it comes to those least able to protect their own rights, such as the elderly, the infirm, children, and, yes, the unborn.

Beyond that, people have not only a legal responsibility to protect their children, but a moral duty as well.

Yes, the right of a woman to her body is an important one and I defend that right. Individuals, not the state, are the proper owners of the body.

That is why things such as suicide, prostitution and drug use should be protected rights.
However, your rights end where the rights of another begin. A woman’s right to her body ends when it interferes with a child’s right to live. Period.

Women do have a choice. It’s called birth control or abstinence.

Like many things in life, once you make a bad decision, you are stuck with the consequences of that decision. If you decide to have unprotected sex and become pregnant, that is simply the cost of your poor choice.

Even if you do not agree with that, it is hard to understand how anyone could support abortion beyond the first trimester. If you feel the need to kill a baby, at least do it in the first 12 weeks as happens in 88 percent of American abortions. In most cases, there is no reason to wait beyond 12 weeks.

Even if a mother does not want her baby, there are certainly better solutions than killing it.
It is heartening that the pro-abortion crowd finds Gosnell’s actions reprehensible. It is a shame, however, that they can’t see the similar horrors of the estimated 1.2 million babies killed by abortionists every year.