Pro-lifers asking: Why isn't the Gosnell trial bigger news in the traditional media?

[lavenderviolet]

Have you heard of Kermit Gosnell? If you haven’t, you’re not the only one apparently.
Kermit Gosnell is an abortion provider who is currently on trial for 8 counts of murder: 1 count for a woman who died after abortion, and 7 counts for incidents in which he killed infants by “snipping” their spinal cords after they were born alive in the process of late term abortion.
There are many, many more allegations of illegal and unethical behavior, as you can read about in the
Grand Jury report if you really want to, or you might just want to read the Cliff notes summary at TruTv’s crime library. That’s bad enough, I think.

The level of inhumane disregard that the guy seems to have shown towards his patients and the fetuses/infants is almost cartoonish in how over the top it seems to have been.

The Atlantic is arguing that this story should be front page news :

Inducing live births and subsequently severing the heads of the babies is indeed a horrific story that merits significant attention. Strange as it seems to say it, however, that understates the case.

For this isn’t solely a story about babies having their heads severed, though it is that. It is also a story about a place where, according to the grand jury, women were sent to give birth into toilets; where a doctor casually spread gonorrhea and chlamydiae to unsuspecting women through the reuse of cheap, disposable instruments; an office where a 15-year-old administered anesthesia; an office where former workers admit to playing games when giving patients powerful narcotics; an office where white women were attended to by a doctor and black women were pawned off on clueless untrained staffers. Any single one of those things would itself make for a blockbuster news story. Is it even conceivable that an optometrist who attended to his white patients in a clean office while an intern took care of the black patients in a filthy room wouldn’t make national headlines?

But it isn’t even solely a story of a rogue clinic that’s awful in all sorts of sensational ways either. Multiple local and state agencies are implicated in an oversight failure that is epic in proportions! If I were a city editor for any Philadelphia newspaper the grand jury report would suggest a dozen major investigative projects I could undertake if I had the staff to support them. And I probably wouldn’t have the staff. But there is so much fodder for additional reporting.

There is, finally, the fact that abortion, one of the most hotly contested, polarizing debates in the country, is at the center of this case. It arguably informs the abortion debate in any number of ways, and has numerous plausible implications for abortion policy, including the oversight and regulation of clinics, the appropriateness of late-term abortions, the penalties for failing to report abuses, the statute of limitations for killings like those with which Gosnell is charged, whether staff should be legally culpable for the bad behavior of doctors under whom they work…

There’s just no end to it.

In a response to this, Slate posted an article:

Let’s just state the obvious: National political reporters are, by and large, socially liberal. We are more likely to know a gay couple than to know someone who owns an “assault weapon.” We 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. Horror stories of abortionists are less likely to permeate that bubble than, say, a story about a right-wing pundit attacking an abortionist who then claims to have gotten death threats.

Personally I do think the media’s relative disinterest in it (though it seems to be gaining traction now) is symptomatic of the same issue that caused the clinic to operate so long without any of the regulators taking notice.

[hansel]

There Is No Gosnell Coverup

[John_Mace]

@hansel

There Is No Gosnell Coverup

A coverup is a deliberate act. I don’t think the OP is claiming there is some secret cabal organizing a news blackout of the story. The allegation seems to be that it’s a matter of benign neglect.

I’ve never heard of this case, and I’m not ready to argue one side or the other, but just pointing out that your rebuttal is a strawman.

[Ferret_Herder]

This article says it’s because it happened to poor black women, mostly. Same thing with why cute white girls getting abducted make it onto national news.

Also, and what the ‘pro-life’ people don’t want to acknowledge, is that this is a problem that was fostered by their movement. Women speak of going there because they were scared by protesters outside of Planned Parenthood. This is a “back-alley” style clinic that failed even the most basic medical care standards.

[Squeegy]

As hansel put it, there is no blackout and it’s not being ignored by the media (as the link pointed out, there was copious coverage amongst feminist and pro-choice journalists). As for why it hasn’t penetrated the mainstream media and debates, I might suggest that it is because it is irrelevant. People aren’t fighting for late-term abortions, it’s not really related to the abortion debate, it would essentially just be a tool used for shock value.

But, on a side note, I’d like to point out that this is exactly the kind of thing that happens when you start criminalizing abortions. Women are forced to go to doctors like this guy in order to get them. I think that this would be a great jumping off point for an argument over the consequences of extremist conservative legislation on abortion.

e: Exactly, Ferret Herder!

[brickbacon]

I think the main reason this isn’t a huge story is because there are no compelling characters, nor is there an engrossing, relatable, or substantive narrative. Few people want to hear details about dead babies, nor do they think is is a common problem. Even though the article linked to in the OP tries to make the claim this stories is about lack of oversight, or late-term abortions, the reality is that this mostly about one really sick dude who did some dispicable things. The guy had a jar of severed feet for Christ sake. His behavior tells us little about doctors, abortions, or anything else. The story doesn’t make for good TV, nor does it help the audience in any appreciable way, so why should we expect the MSM to cover the story beyond reporting the facts at the time (as they did).

[Omg_a_Black_Conservative]

Because the media generally ignores anything that paints abortion in a bad light but is more than happy to run every negative story about pro-lifers under the sun. Not new news in the slightest.

[adaher]

There’s no coverup, but the media does like to tell a story, and any story that doesn’t fit the narrative is not important news. An abortion doctor murdered is a story that will stay in the news for weeks because it fits the narrative the media wants to push. We’ll be asked to think about what it all means. An abortion doctor murdering live babies merits only a blurb in the back of the paper and no larger lessons should be drawn from the story, which is of course an isolated event. Except that down here in Florida, live babies were also being killed and the story mostly stayed local.

Charges filed against clinic co-owner in abortion case - CNN.com

It took me an inordinate amount of time to find the story covered anywhere but pro-life sites, whereas the murder of every abortion doctor is all over mainstream media archives. So there is clearly a decision here by the mainstream media to value doctor lives over live babies’ lives. You would think both would be considered of equal value and deserving of equal coverage.

[bdgr]

More than anything, it’s because it’s icky. People will tune in to see crying parents they can sympathize with, or a group of people they can be angry at. People are going to change the channel if you’re talking about killing babies in detail, and news is ratings driven. The audience changes the channel, they don’t get paid.

[adaher]

There’s that, but I think when it comes to abortion, there’s an understanding in society that viable babies are sometimes killed, and we just look away. Pro-choice in theory means a woman’s body is hers to do with as she pleases. Pro-choice in practice is really about reproductive choice. If she steps into the clinic pregnant and doesn’t want a baby, how it’s killed is really of no relevance to society, just so long as the staff don’t get caught. And the system is set up so that they rarely ever get caught. Gosnell was stupid because he kept trophies and ran his practice like a butcher shop. But if you keep it clean, no one’s going to pay attention if a few babies get born in the clinic and then snuffed.

[adaher]

Interesting tweet from a Post reporter:

Sarah Kliff

Hi Molly - I cover policy for the Washington Post, not local crime, hence why I wrote about all the policy issues you mention.
Okay, so lots of dead babies is a purely local story, a murdered doctor is national. Got it.

[Little_Nemo]

Wow, poor black women receiving inadequate medical care which wasn’t being regulated enough by the government.

Yes, we definitely need to elect more conservatives if we want to eliminate this kind of thing.

[adaher]

Ah, but here’s where liberals suddenly get religion on regulation: they didn’t want to subject abortion clinics to regulation because that would mean less access to abortion. Now if only liberals applied that principle to all regulation.

While it’s true that Republicans’ ultimate goal is to outlaw abortion, the state level regulations are entirely reasonable. The fact that many abortion clinics would have to close is because most abortion clinics are run by shady characters. We haven’t actually come very far from the back alleys and coathangers, due to lack of regulation and oversight.

Gosnell’s clinic hadn’t been inspected for decades. As a former restaurant manager, I wish the state would have shown me that level of trust.

[Little_Nemo]

@adaher

Ah, but here’s where liberals suddenly get religion on regulation: they didn’t want to subject abortion clinics to regulation because that would mean less access to abortion. Now if only liberals applied that principle to all regulation.

I disagree. Liberals don’t believe regulation stifles businesses. They would have no ideological problem regulating an abortion clinic as long as the regulation wasn’t used as an excuse to close the clinic.

[adaher]

None of the regulations proposed should close many clinics, except for the fact that they’ve been so used to not being regulated effectively that they’d have trouble meeting even minimum standards.

The situation in Pennsylvania was pretty much non-existent enforcement of regulations. If this had been an urgent care clinic, the media would be demanding new regulations and more money for enforcement.

[adaher]

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/cover-story/Neglect-of-West-Philly-Abortion-Victims-Was-By-Design.html

Hundreds of children murdered. In any other context, this would be the trial of the century.

The author also points out that the inspections were stopped for political reasons:

**“Most appalling of all,” states the grand jury report, “the Department of Health’s neglect of abortion patients’ safety and of Pennsylvania laws is clearly not inadvertent: It is by design.”

After 1993, “the Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all … With the change of administration from Governor [Bob] Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions,” the report says.

That fatal decision was enacted by Gov. Tom Ridge, a pro-choice Republican, in response to the legacy inherited by Gov. Casey, a pro-life Democrat who passed landmark legislation in Pennsylvania that enabled states to restrict women’s access to abortion.

Not only did inspections systematically stop in 1993, red flags were ignored. They include a former employee’s complaint that “laid out the whole scope of [Gosnell’s] operation,” and a malpractice lawsuit over the death of 22-year-old Semika Shaw, a mother of two children who died of sepsis at University of Pennsylvania hospital after Gosnell punctured her uterus.

**

Furthermore, local hospitals were aware of his butcher shop but didn’t report it as required by law:

**Local negligence added additional layers to the complex matrix of oversight failure. For example, “Penn could not find a single case in which it complied with its legal duty to alert authorities” in cases where emergency room physicians had to treat ramifications of Gosnell’s botched procedures, as required under the Abortion Control Act.

As a private physician treating teenage girls in West Philadelphia, Dr. Donald Schwarz—currently Philadelphia’s health commissioner—noticed a pattern of his patients becoming infected with Trichomoniasis, a sexually transmitted parasite, after appointments at Gosnell’s clinic. Schwarz testified to the grand jury that about six years ago, he “hand-delivered” a complaint about Gosnell’s clinic to the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

Yet in his two years as the city’s health commissioner, he did not check into Gosnell’s practice. In addition to his personal knowledge of problems, the Philadelphia Department of Health was aware that Gosnell never submitted a infectious medical waste removal plan—the reason fetuses and body parts littered on the premises.

Read more: http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/cover-story/Neglect-of-West-Philly-Abortion-Victims-Was-By-Design.html?page=2&comments=1&showAll=#ixzz2QKSHGWew
**

I mean, this story is HUGE! Not only is it one of the biggest mass murder cases in US history, it was actively abetted by the authorities and people who knew what was going on and had an obligation to report it. Not that it would have done any good, what with the state looking the other way on purpose…

There is no other context in which this story isn’t one of the biggest stories of all time.

[esmeralda2]

@Ferret_Herder

**This article says it’s because it happened to poor black women, mostly. Same thing with why cute white girls getting abducted make it onto national news.**Also, and what the ‘pro-life’ people don’t want to acknowledge, is that this is a problem that was fostered by their movement. Women speak of going there because they were scared by protesters outside of Planned Parenthood. This is a “back-alley” style clinic that failed even the most basic medical care standards.

I tend to agree with both of these points.

I wonder if the OB can say if this story has been covered by Fox News. Because Fox News is a conservative but very national media source. If they are discusing it, then it isn’t being ignored by the national media. If they are not, do you think they are part of a conspiracy keeping the story out of the national media?

[adaher]

What would you think if a major news network decided Newtown wasn’t newsworthy? What would you think if all but MSNBC thought it was merely a “local crime story”? What would that tell you?

The excuse about fear of protesters is nonsense. Gosnell’s clinic was uniquely safe from protesters? I don’t buy it. And there was no access problem because basically anyone could open an abortion clinic in Pennsylvania without fear of regulatory compliance.

But that aside, this is a big story, and the media is treating it as less important than Trayvon Martin or Newtown. that’s because those stories allow the media to push a narrative. There are larger lessons they want us to learn from those stories. There’s no lesson they want us to learn from Kermit Gosnell. We’re supposed to believe he’s an isolated case.

[Lynn_Bodoni]

@adaher

None of the regulations proposed should close many clinics, except for the fact that they’ve been so used to not being regulated effectively that they’d have trouble meeting even minimum standards.

The situation in Pennsylvania was pretty much non-existent enforcement of regulations. If this had been an urgent care clinic, the media would be demanding new regulations and more money for enforcement.

There are regulations which are medically sound, like requiring sterile instruments. Then there are regulations which are not medically sound, but which are intended to put up roadblocks to obtaining an abortion, like requiring a doctor to tell the patient that abortions increase the risk of breast cancer, even though that has been disproven. Or the regulation which required women to undergo a medically unnecessary intravaginal ultrasound.

Regulations in the FIRST category are good. Regulations in the SECOND category ar bad, and are put into place to discourage abortions, and to punish women for having them. Gosnell was breaking the first kind of regulations, the sort of regulations that should be in place in ANY medical facility.

[adaher]

@Lynn_Bodoni

There are regulations which are medically sound, like requiring sterile instruments. Then there are regulations which are not medically sound, but which are intended to put up roadblocks to obtaining an abortion, like requiring a doctor to tell the patient that abortions increase the risk of breast cancer, even though that has been disproven. Or the regulation which required women to undergo a medically unnecessary intravaginal ultrasound.

True. Some regulations are just BS, but then BS regulations are imposed on all industries. The important thing isn’t so much lack of regulation but lack of enforcement. You can’t be sure sterile instruments are being used if you never inspect.