Ashley Pierce is a political science freshman and Mustang Daily conservative columnist.
Fox News correspondent and political comedian Steven Crowder (who will be speaking on Cal Poly’s campus Tuesday at 6 p.m.) recently released a video in which he revealed a large proportion of Americans have heard nothing about the Gosnell abortion trial happening in Pennsylvania. In order to make sure Cal Poly’s campus is up to date on this trial, here are some facts — and a whole lot of opinion:
Gosnell, an abortion doctor, was brought to public attention when he was accused of murdering four babies who survived his botched abortions. His entire clinic is found to be guilty of not just the accused murder, but of hideous malpractice.
The clinic has been described as if from a horror movie. The Daily Caller reported that there was evidence of non-sterilized instruments being used during procedures and, most disturbing, body parts from the aborted babies allegedly backed up plumbing in the facility.
Gosnell stands on trial in connection with the murder of four babies because former employees came forward as witnesses that the babies moved, breathed or cried after being so-called “aborted.” Gosnell has since denied these claims and insists the babies were simply experiencing involuntary spasms. He still had their spines cut, because I guess he just wanted to be extra sure they were dead.
The jury in Gosnell’s trial has asked for a police property receipt of Gosnell’s medications and drugs found in the clinic. Digoxin, a drug the clinic claimed to use to kill the babies while still in the mother’s womb, was not found. This could indicate Gosnell’s sentence will rely on whether he killed the babies in or outside the womb, despite the abortions being illegal late in the pregnancy.
It shouldn’t matter, however, whether the babies were murdered inside or outside of the womb. They were still late-term abortions at 24 or more weeks. Babies, at this time, are considered developed and able to live outside of the womb. The baby was not a non-living thing inside the womb and then magically, a moment later, became a living, breathing person with the right to live.
If the jury decides that Gosnell isn’t guilty of murder for killing the baby inside the womb at 24 weeks, then Gosnell isn’t guilty of murder for killing the baby outside the womb at 24 weeks. Gosnell is either a murderer or he isn’t. Location cannot change if the baby was alive or not.
Gosnell’s clinic is not alone in these crimes. Recent video was released by LiveAction of a woman, Lila Rose, as she went undercover at an abortion clinic in New York.
The law in New York, as it is in Pennsylvania, declares that abortions cannot be performed after 24 weeks. In the video, Rose tells the woman at the clinic that she is 23 weeks pregnant. She then asks a number of questions such as “How big is it?” to which the woman at the clinic answers that he or she is “fully grown.”
The woman goes on to say that if the baby were to twitch after the abortion, a solution the dead bodies are soaked in will “make it stop.” Despite the babies supposedly being aborted in the womb, “that’s the whole purpose of the solution,” says the clinic: to make them stop twitching. And rest assured, if Rose goes into labor at home before the abortion, she should just “flush it.”
Late-term abortions and the practices in abortion clinics across the country are worse than Americans think, and we have simply turned a blind eye to it.
The decisions of this case may cause a large new movement to change abortion laws. If they’re going to be legal (though they should arguably be outlawed all together) then these types of malpractices cannot exist. If a baby is born alive, he or she cannot be killed or “flushed.” Anybody who does otherwise should be convicted of first-degree murder, without question.