Disturbing. Disgusting. Devastating.
Amazing. Exhilarating. Awakening.
First and foremost this is a book about manner and means in which (i) Dr. Kermit Gosnell engaged in his long history murder; (ii) the number of persons who aided him in his gruesome acts, whether motivated by greed or callous disregard for human life; (iii) State medical agencies that had multiple opportunities to intervene over decades but failed to do so either from incompetence, laziness, or an outright determination to coverup Dr. Gosnell's heinous crimes because his crimes only affected forgettable poor black and brown girls; and (iv) when Dr. Gosnell was final arrested and brought forth to trial, the reasons why the "main stream press" chose ignore the story.
Many will argue that this book and the Gosnell case is an indictment on abortion, but it is a shortsighted argument. The Gosnell case really asks whether the lives of black and brown women and the live fetuses Dr. Gosnell delivered ALIVE then decapitated truly matter. Simply stated, women from the urban community in Philadelphia were the main clientele of Dr. Gosnell's abortion practice. His office was disgusting. My stomach turns and my heart breaks for any woman desperate enough to utilize his office to have such an emotional and physically invasive procedure performed. I will leave the details for those who choose to read the book but you will truly understand the "house of horrors" phrase once you get through with the passage. Needless to say, for those women who make it through the front waiting room, the procedure room is worse. If you were lucky, you did not wake up during your abortion. If you did wake up, Dr. Gosnell might punch you in the hip, the stomach, the legs, or the face. If you were really unlucky, you did not wake up at all. Worse yet, you woke up sort of and were sent home with an infection brewing; you died a couple of days later--usually because Dr. Gosnell left a piece of your dead fetus in your womb. No worries, he'll get that when you come back for your next abortion.
But what was worse - ungodly worse - were the abortions themselves. Dr. Gosnell, though a licensed medical doctor, was not a certified abortionist. Nonetheless, he held himself out as an abortionist for over 30yrs, specializing in late term abortions (at least in Pennsylvania where late term could occur no later than 23 weeks and 6 days). Dr. Gosnell, however, in his office with broken and defective equipment, jury-rigged ultrasounds--faking the results so that women whose pregnancy had far exceeded the 23wk6d deadline would show a fetus within the permissible allowance. [Without going into the story, Gosnell's fake facts are his undoing. It is some pretty snazzy detective and legal work.] Court records show that Dr. Gosnell performed late term abortions on fetuses as late as 29.5wks and 34wks. But it was the method of the abortion that qualified as murder in the State of Pennsylvania. Over a three day period, Dr. Gosnell would induce the woman's labor, deliver the fetus alive (which at this point she was in her sixth -seventh month of pregnancy), then turn the fetus on its stomach take surgical scissors and stab them into the fetus' neck between the brain and spinal cord; thereby killing the fetus. It is described in the book as basically a decapitation.
The prosecutor stated in his closing argument made a compelling analogy that when we, as Americans, take our dying animals to the vet, the vet puts two drugs into our beloved animal. The first IV drip is to put our pet to sleep, and the second IV drip is to stop our pet's heart. We leave our pet at the vet for proper "waste management" of our pet's remains, and when we come back we pick up a discrete package. We know our pet was taken care of by professionals with care. We give our pets more care and respect than Dr. Gosnell gave to the Black and Brown women who sought his abortion services. We definitely give our pets more care and respect to than Dr. Gosnell gave to the Black and Brown fetuses he was entrusted to legally abort but chose instead to deliver--allow to breath, to cry, to kick, to live, a baby outside of its mother--and then heinously kill. Oh, and Dr. Gosnell did not contract with an outside waste management company for these fetuses. He stored them in milk jugs, gatorade bottles, any other bottles he had lying around and put them in the break room freezer and the basement freezer. And, when necessary he had the office staff flush fetus parts down the toilet until the toilet backed up, and ran the fetus parts down the garbage disposal. Yep, the garbage disposal.
We as women are so much better than what we have offered the world thus far. We divide ourselves with gender and identity politics, organizational agendas, and a need for protectionist laws that once enacted largely go unenforced to our own peril. After reading this book, my "lesson learned," at least when it comes to abortion, is that perhaps it is time to reframe the discussion. Rather than starting the abortion "argument" or "debate" as one of a right of privacy or woman's heath care or one of "Pro-Choice" v. "Pro-Live", it should be the following:
Abortion is state sanctioned murder of a fetus until the _______ week of the pregnancy because the state and the people of the state agree that a woman has a right to choose not to be a mother. As such, the woman has a right to quality medical care in the State, which means she has the right to seek and obtain the services of a licensed abortionist.
The point is that it is time to agree what abortion is and why a woman seeks to obtain the services. She does not owe any one an excuse or an apology, yet she is not going to the dentist either. As one learns from the licensed abortionist who gives testimony in the Gosnell case, regardless of one's stance on the issue, that fetus' heart is beating and even very early in the gestation of the pregnancy it is likely that it could be delivered and survive outside the mother. So, it isn't simply a mass of cells. That fetus is alive. We, as a community, are agreeing to State sanctioned murder, and for a limited period of time, that's okay. It is important to come to this community wide consensus. It is a means of accepting responsibility, sharing guilt, and absolution. It is what is missing in current laws, so there is a misplaced anger and resentment. I say we as a community must own it, embrace it, mourn it, then let go.
Likewise, Dr. Gosnell's case may or may not be the exception. There may be other state health agencies elsewhere failing to properly oversee and regulate abortion clinics. If so, how many other poor Black and Brown (hell, even poor white-privileged women) are suffering at the hands of unregulated abortionists and their untrained unlicensed staff. We just don't know. The sad truth is that the purpose of Roe v. Wade was to ensure that women were not relegated to unlawful "backroom abortions" or "coat hanger" abortions, but if state health agencies are not actually regulating these abortion facilities and the industry is not self regulating as it claims it is, then the vulnerable, the poor, the most marginalized are at the greatest risk of experiencing the horrors that Roe v. Wade was meant of prevent. But it looks like we might be headed back to the nasty beginning. So to protect theses women it is imperative that states pass laws requiring abortion clinics and the abortions have hospital privileges. It is not about setting road blocks to women getting legal abortions or making it more expensive for abortion doctors stay in practice. For the love of all thing right in this world, it is about making sure that when a woman seeks the services of an abortionist, the facility is clean, the equipment works, the instruments are sterilized, the staff is licensed to perform the tasked they are undertaking, and the doctor knows what he is doing. I would not want any woman to have Dr. Gosnell REUSE the same $1.29 disposable uterus scraper on her that he used on the last 4 women. YUK! If we as woman are going to fight for legislation, can we not fight for laws that say that our abortionists must have hospital privileges, must be insured with at least $10,000,000 in malpractice insurance for the doc and staff (regardless if staff is employed by doc or contracted from staffing agency), and whatever other requirements we as women think are necessary to make sure our health and vaginas are medically sound when the procedure is over.
Otherwise, we might was well have DIY abortion videos on youtube or pintrest. The results would probably be more successful, more hygienic, and the recovery would be easier on the women. Oh, and more than likely, no laws would be broken.
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Top reviews from other countries
Barry E. Sheridan
A harrowing, if necessary read.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 27, 2018Amazon Customer
Rethinking what we've been told....
Reviewed in Canada on February 16, 2017Lucky Gem
Compelling read; page-turner; made me cry a few times
Reviewed in Canada on November 17, 2018G.W.
The facts uncovered are almost unbelievable - a brutal mass murderer and his accomplices were allowed to do their dirty business
Reviewed in Canada on March 23, 2017
