Unmourned, Unloved and Politically Inconvenient

"First MOLOCH, horrid King besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents tears,
Though, for the noise of Drums and Timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire
To his grim Idol - John Milton,Paradise Lost

Tophet is Moloch, which was made of brass; and they heated him from his lower parts; and his hands being stretched out, and made hot, they put the child between his hands, and it was burnt; when it vehemently cried out; but the priests beat a drum, that the father might not hear the voice of his son, and his heart might not be moved. - Rashi, 12th century commentary on Jeremiah 7:31

There was in the city of the Carthaginians a bronze image of Cronus (Moloch) extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire.- Diodorus Siculus,Bibliotheca historica 49 BC

In ancient times, there was a god worshiped in the Middle East called Ba'al, Moloch, Milkh, or Tophet among other names among the Canaanites,Phoenicians and Carthaginians whose attributes were similar to those of the Roman Saturn or the Greek Cronos. Its rites included the murder of children by tossing them into the fire built within or next to the idol.

In Leviticus 20:2-5, G-d enjoined the Jews never to give any of their seed as a sacrifice to Molokh, and that anyone who did would surely die because "I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go astray after him."


There's a trial going on in Philadelphia today in Philadelphia that merits notice in this context.



Dr. Kermit Gosnell ran an abortion clinic in the city and is accused of a number of horrendous crimes, according to the Grand Jury report:

"This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy - and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors."

"The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels - and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths."

He's been charged with 7 counts of first degree murder.

The illegal part of what Dr. Gosnell did is worthy of reflecting on.

According to his former clinic staff, at least 100 living babies were murdered moments after Dr. Gosnell (or in some cases, his unlicensed assistants) ripped them out of the womb.Pennsylvania law forbids abortion in most cases after 24 weeks (the end of the second trimester). His standard method of killing the children was snipping the spinal cords, what one of his assistants described as 'a virtual beheading.' Dr. Gosnell frequently used drugs to induce labor so as to deliver the babies faster and make the killing process easier. One of his assistants in testimony described 'fetuses and blood flying around everywhere.'

Dr. Gosnell has also been charged with the murder of a 41-year-old Virginia woman who died from an overdose of anesthetic drugs, possibly administered by another unlicensed 'doctor'.

Several women patients were badly injured, according to the report. One was left simply lying there after her cervix and colon were torn in the process of trying to pull a baby out of her womb so it could be 'dealt with'. Another, only 18 years old, was not given proper care after her uterus was punctured and had to undergo a hysterectomy. Others actually contracted venereal diseases, painful infections and other complications because of the unsanitary conditions, where rusty and outdated machines, dirty, unsterilized instruments and filthy surroundings.

When the police finally got around to investigating Dr. Gosnell's clinic because of a tip he was illegally 'proscribing' drugs, they found fetal remains "stored throughout the clinic - in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers."

So what Dr. Gosnell is being charged with, actually, is performing late term abortions (illegal in Pennsylvania but not in a number of states), keeping a sloppy and unsanitary shop, allowing unauthorized and unlicensed personnel to perform procedures and administer drugs and the injuries and at least one murder that resulted from that.

Had he worked for, say, Planned Parenthood in a clean, up-to-date environment with licensed assistants in a state like California that allows abortion on demand for any reason no matter how far along the pregnancy is, he would have been doing essentially the same thing without any problems.

What Dr. Gosnell was doing to babies is not that much different than other doctors when it comes to late term abortions. They are merely more skillful and using better equipment.

The usual process is to puncture the baby's skull and use a hose to suction out the brains and collapse the skull so it can be pulled out of the womb.

Two questions immediately come to mind for most people hearing about this for the first time.

This carnage went on literally for years. Didn't anyone complain to the authorities?

Yes, as a matter of fact, they did. The Departments of Health for both the City of Philadelphia and the State of Pennsylvania had received reports of what was going on in Dr. Gosnell's infanticide factory. Even after one of Dr. Gosnell's own employees quit and went to the state board and filed a formal complaint on what was going on, nothing was done.

When Dr. Gosnell applied for membership in the National Abortion Federation, the professional association of abortion practitioners because of the referrals that were possible, an inspector visited the clinic and turned him down - but made no report to the authorities on what she found there.

In the end, it wasn't the murder of babies or injuries to women that got Dr. Gosnell closed down, but a tip to the police that he was illegally proscribing drugs. Even then, he was allowed his freedom for a number of weeks, which gave him time to destroy most of his records.

Why?

And once this became a news story, why did the dinosaur media refuse to cover it? Under the classic journalism formula of 'if it bleeds, it leads' this should have been a major news story on the alphabet networks, the New York Times,the Washington Post, every major outlet you can think of. Why did they ignore it?

The picture below, courtesy of Breitbart is a photo of the empty 'reserved media section' at the Gosnell trial last week.

 

After the conservative blogosphere began hammering on this and Kirsten Powers, a Democrat and self professed liberal who works for FOX voiced outrage over the media's ignoring the Gosnell trial in a column that went viral, the Dinosaur media reluctantly began covering the story, with the Washington Post belatedly admitting that they perhaps 'should have covered this earlier' and finally assigning a reporter to the trial.

There are a number of reasons why the Pennsylvania authorities were reluctant to investigate Dr. Gosnell, and why the media steered clear of this story, and they're connected.

The dinosaur media, as even Dave Weigel of Slate admits, "are, generally, pro-choice. Twice, in D.C., I've caused a friend to literally leave a conversation and freeze me out for a day or so because I suggested that the Stupak Amendment and the Hyde Amendment made sense. There is a bubble."

These same, overwhelmingly Leftist journalists are generally rabidly anti-Second Amendment. So a one off situation where a mentally ill malcontent murders his mother, steals her guns and is somehow let into a school supposedly under lock down procedures tomurder others is a headline story, a cause celebre' and a trigger for massive legislation whereas a Philadelphia doctor who murdered hundreds is something to be ignored. It's all about the agenda and what serves it.

The same thing applies to a bureaucracy in a state that has a strong 'pro-choice' lobby. They're reluctant to be seen shutting down an abortion facility unless the abuses are so blatantly obvious they can't be ignored.

Another aspect of the Gosnell case that merited it being studiously ignored by the media (and I've yet to see it mentioned anywhere) is its connection with President Obama.This president has a clear record as a vigorous advocate of denying babies who survive an abortion medical care. His stance on the matter was more radical than even NARAL's. and the proper name for this is infanticide. Isn't that  pretty much what Dr. Gosnell is accused of, murdering viable, fully formed babies outside the womb?

Even worse from the standpoint of the media and abortion-on-demand advocates, Planned Parenthood, whose primary source for their multi-million dollar income according to their own budget is abortion and the Federal funds that cover it seem to agree with that, as this snippet makes clear.

I actually feel for this woman. She appears to know that what she's defending is morally wrong, but also knows that as a Planned Parenthood spokesperson she's being paid to advocate for it. And her discomfort is obvious.



Now that this story is in the public eye, abortion on demand advocates are attempting to spin it by saying that Dr. Gosnell's little shop of horrors is what women will be facing if abortion is criminalized.But the fact remains this was a legally licensed abortion clinic in good standing, no one is talking about criminalizing abortion per se and that what we're talking about here is something very different. Again, had Dr, Gosnell been working for Planned Parenthood in a state that allows abortion later than 24 weeks in a clean shop with licensed assistants, nothing would be said.

What's bothering a lot of people whether they admit it or not is what this says about our culture.

At Dr. Gosnell's trial one of his 'assistants', Adrienne Moton sobbed as she recalled snipping the necks of at least 10 babies after they were delivered, just as Dr. Gosnell had instructed her.

One of the babies who was murdered was so developed and healthy - the 'nurse' estimated his age at 30 weeks - that Dr. Gosnell joked that that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop.


On another occasion, she testified that she killed a baby delivered into a toilet by cutting its neck with scissors. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she replied, “At first I didn’t.”

For thirty years, our culture has been instructed to think of children in the womb no matter how advanced in gestation as mere blobs of tissue rather than viable, living human beings. Is it any wonder that at first Adrienne Moton had no second thoughts, no qualms about what she was doing, that she had to think about it for awhile?

At this point, we get to the ultimate issue.

And it's not enough to mouth a slogan like "I'm a liberal and pro choice."

Is a six-month-old child in the womb not a person with a right to life? Obviously in some cases, say, where the mother's life is in danger, there's a different priority.

But if we have a healthy mother and a healthy child in the womb conceived through consensual sex who is a viable baby, if a six-month old child in the womb with a fully developed nervous system and able to feel pain when they're ripped from the womb and beheaded is 'not a person', if that child's choices should be arbitrarily taken away for someone else's convenience, then that is neither liberal nor pro-choice if we look at a dictionary and see what those words actually mean.

Dr. Gosnell made a choice, to run an abattoir disguised as an abortion clinic. So did the women who went to his clinic. These women could have made the choice to procure a legal abortion anytime up to 24 weeks, and if they were poor the State of Pennsylvania would have paid for it. They chose not to. Or they could have chosen to allow the child to live, and put him up for adoption to a loving family.Again,they made the choice not to.

The choice they made instead involved taking away the choice of a defenseless human being who wanted very much to live. Do people whom call themselves 'pro-choice' support that choice? Are we as a culture at a point where we support that choice?

If the answer's yes, than we are no better than than the worshipers of Moloch, hurling children into the flames. And we will deserve no better than to ultimately share their fate.