Amanda Marcotte begins by quickly contorting herself into an intellectual pretzel trying to blame the pro-life movement for this madman.
That shady abortion providers get patients at all is something we can safely blame the anti-choice movement for. Most doctors in this country are pro-choice, and many would like to provide abortion, but as Slate’s Emily Bazelon demonstrated in the New York Times, the stigma of doing so makes it that much harder to do. Good medical care costs money, but very few women seeking abortion can get coverage, in no small part because of anti-choice initiatives like the Hyde Amendment. If you’re seeking an abortion but can’t afford it, going to a doctor who provides substandard care on the cheap is certainly going to be an attractive option.
These particular charges involve late-term abortion, and all I could think upon reading the news story was, “I wish these women could have gone to Dr. George Tiller,” because he was renowned for the quality of care provided at his Kansas clinic. But sadly, that wasn’t even an option, even for those who could afford it, as Dr. Tiller’s life was taken by an anti-choice extremist in 2009. When vacuums are created, we shouldn’t be surprised when they suck in a bunch of junk.
Amanda’s premise is flawed on virtually every level. First, Dr. Tiller was murdered in 2009. The violations at Dr. Gosnell’s clinic go back decades, so many of the women violated at his clinic could have gone to Dr. Tiller. Also, this wasn’t a case of women choosing to go to an abortion butcher like Dr. Gosnell because it was cheap, or because better options weren’t available. As Rachael Larimore pointed out in her rebuttal, Philadelphia houses several abortion clinics, one of which offers financial assistance. Pennsylvania offers no-cost birth control and emergency contraception to women who qualify. And while Planned Parenthood charges less than $1,000 for first trimester abortions, Dr. Gosnell was charging his patients $2,500 or more for his late-term abortions.
Jill at Feministe tried to pretend that he was just a murderer and not an abortionist, and therefore this has nothing to do with abortion.
Contrary to what Great Moral Authority On Abortion William Saletan has to say about the matter, I think we’re all pretty well agreed that if the charges against Kermit Gosnell are true, then dude is a criminal and needs to go to jail. Killing a baby after it’s born and has taken breaths? Is not abortion. It should be, and is, a crime punishable by law. And Kermit Gosnell is being criminally prosecuted.
Also, women don’t get late-term abortions for fun. Seriously. No one is like, “I think I will continue this pregnancy for as long as legally possible before I undergo an invasive medical procedure that is rendered longer, more expensive, and more complicated because I waited six months to have it.” No. It’s actually more like, “I really wanted this baby but now it turns out that there’s a fetal abnormality incompatible with life, and if I continue this pregnancy I risk my own health and/or life to give birth to a baby that either will not live or will only live in extreme pain for a very short while.” Fun stuff like that.
That’s a falsehood, of course. Most late-term abortions are actually not done to save the life of the mother or because the baby won’t survive. There have been virtually no studies done on late-term abortions, with the exception of the Guttmacher Institute over 20 years ago. In a survey of 1,900 women who had abortions, 420 had late-term abortions. Of those 420, only 2% had a late-term abortion due to a fetal abnormality. Most women just claimed they didn’t know they were pregnant or misjudged their gestation. And what is Jill’s point? That killing a baby when he is delivered is murder, but doing it moments beforehand when he’s still partially in his mother’s birth canal is A-OK? To someone like her, there’s no difference. And it wasn’t as if Dr. Gosnell was only killing babies in the “bad” way. He performed many, many, many “acceptable” late-term abortions. He’s being charged with 33 illegal late-term abortions, but killed hundreds in this manner.
Vanessa Valenti at Feministing basically regurgitates Jill Filipovic and Amanda Marcotte’s nonsensical arguments. It’s not about abortion, but even if it was, this never would have happened if women had better access to abortion clinics anyways. Nevermind the 33 counts of felony abortion and exorbitant prices patients were charged. Gotta tread carefully here, because if they express too much condemnation, then it could infringe on abortion rights!
The pro-abortion feminist left is going to great lengths to brush this controversy underneath the rug in order to protect abortion rights. They claim to be fighting for women, but are willing to overlook instances where women are abused and injured, and even killed. Yet somehow, we’re supposed to believe that these are today’s champions of women’s rights — women who can barely muster more than a shrug of the shoulders over the murder of one woman, the murders of seven infants, and the butchering of countless other women who were fortunate enough to survive a visit to Gosnell’s clinic. If one ever needed an example of just how far these women who call themselves feminists are willing to go to protect their sacred cow, you would need only look at their reaction to Kermit Gosnell butcher shop.
–
Follow Cassy on Twitter and read more of her work at CassyFiano.com and Hard Corps Wife.
