Brooding Over Born Never Asked

It is fascinating to witness how the gory details of the Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s capital murder case has made pro-choice people uncomfortable.  The elite liberal media had to be shamed to cover the serial killing string infanticides of seven babies who were born but had their spinal cords “snipped” to “ensure fetal demise”.  

The New York Times, whose mast proclaims “All the News that is fit to print”, which tends to be the vanguard for the mainstream media (really the elite liberal media) stopped covering it because it had already published six articles.  The New York Times’ editorial editor Andrew Rosenthal rationalized the Old Gray Lady’s lack of curiosity over the gruesome details of Gosnell by opining: 

What does the trial of a Philadelphia doctor who is accused of performing illegal late-term abortions by inducing labor and then killing viable fetuses have to do with the debate over legal abortion?

That rhetorical question is easy to answer– it gives insights how some of our high ranking elected officials actually hold political positions which condone Gosnell’s acts of infanticide and how government officials and medical turn a blind eye to existing law protecting the newly born to ensure the viability of their perceived sacred right of abortion on demand.

Some people got uncomfortable with Snips of Truth which shows that  when Barack Obama was in the Illinois state legislature, he vocally twice voted against  the Born-Alive Protection Act, even after he had the legislative language watered down in committee.  The thrust of Obama’s objections is that the need to have a second physician available is really designed to burden the abortionist if he induces labor and the unborn child is still alive.  

The chilling testimony from the Gosnell trial doing illegal late term abortions and joking “That child could walk me home”, and having a clinic which has a live birth and puts the newborn from a botched abortion in a shoe box until it dies.  But abortion apologists will excuse these egregious actions by claiming that Gosnell is just a bad egg which spoils the bunch. 

The normalcy bias compels low information citizens who are open to abortions to not believe that this course culture of death is prevalent.  That is why the video documentation is telling.  Live Action, a pro-life group which does investigative journalism, documented an abortion clinic worker in the Bronx who advised a prospective six month pregnant mother to “flush” the baby down the toilet if he or she is delivered at home before the final stage of the two- or three-day abortion procedure.  In fact, the Bronx abortion clinic strongly suggested if she was going into labor to call them as opposed to a hospital because they might make you push it out and have the baby. 

Another example is in Orlando, Florida when a 23 week pregnant woman gave birth to a live child in an abortion clinic.  The new mother begged abortion clinic workers to call 911, but those pleas were ignored.  Eventually, the woman (who was still attached to the umbilical cord) got a hold of her cell phone and called for medical help.  Alas, the emergency workers did not arrive in time and her son died. As the distressed mother recounted:  

Baby Rowen, victim of infanticide at Orlando, Florida abortion clinic. 

 I felt so bad. I felt so helpless. I had been so wrong to come here … I wanted to fix and change everything once I saw Rowan’s precious little face and body. All we needed was someone to get us to safety.

But considering the inconvenience that this botched abortion posed and the unsanitary conditions given (unsanitary wet blankets, dried blood on the walls, no assistance during labor), it is obvious in hindsight that no help would be forthcoming. 

Live Action also released an undercover investigative interview with Washington, DC Abortionist Dr. Cesare Santangelo, he told a prospective 24 week pregnant mother:  “I try and sever the umbilical cord first, and we wait for that to stop pulsing, and this way the fetus is expired first.”   When Santagelo was pressed if the baby was born alive, the medically licensed doctor revealed:

Technically – you know, legally we would be obligated to help it, you know, to survive.  But, you know, it probably wouldn’t.  It’s all in how vigorously you do things to help a fetus survive at this point.  Let’s say you went into labor, the membranes ruptured, and you delivered before we got to the termination part of the procedure here, you know?  Then we would do things – we would – we would not help it.  We wouldn’t intubate.  It would be, you know, uh, a person, a terminal person in the hospital, let’s say, that had cancer, you know?  You wouldn’t do any extra procedures to help that person survive.  Like ‘do not resuscitate’ orders.  We would do the same things here.

When the ironically named Dr. Santangelo was caught on tape by pro-life activists, Santangelo tried to do damage control in the sympathetic Washington Post.  Santangelo’s interview was double speak in which he contradicted his infamous statements by insisting that he was call 911 but that he would not do anything extraordinary and that he “would let nature take its course.”  No wonder why Santangelos spokespiece now labels pro lifers "terrorists".


Dr. Santangelo’s outspoken opinions  raises some uncomfortable questions that should give civilized citizens a pregnant pause.  When do the rights of personhood confer?  At 24 weeks, the unborn baby is viable in the womb.  If a child is born in a botched abortion, does the originally stated intent of the mother to kill that thing override the right to life?   Dr. Santanglo likens a fetus surviving an incomplete abortion to being like a terminal person the hospital who one would not take extra ordinary procedures to give medical help.  Analogizing infanticide to “do not resuscitate” orders has several flaws: 1) there is no legal instrument to act upon  2) it seemingly violates the Hyppocratic Oath 3) the child was born but not asked 4) it violates standing federal law. 

It seems that Santangelo does not feel that  that the federal law Born Alive Infant Protection Act”   1 U.S.C. § 8 does not apply to him because the intention was abortion.  Alas, the legislative language covers children born “regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.”    If it offers Santangelo any solace, based upon the prior history of the Obama Administration under the direction of Attorney General Eric Holder of ignoring laws that it does not like and forgoing sure prosecutions to favored political parties. 

It is interesting to note that the Illinois Born Alive Protection Act was modeled after the now law Federal Act, yet Mr. Obama repeatedly voted against it as a state legislator.  As President Obama conveyed in his recent speech before the Planned Parenthood conference, the right to choose is all about womens’ health.   He is proud of Obamacare, which forces nearly everyone (except Muslims, the Amish, Native Americans, Christian Scientists and maybe Congress and their legislative staffs) to getting Qualified Health Plans which HHS Secretary Sebelius proscribed that had to contain abortifacients.  

Although this author is appalled by abortion, it is currently the law of the land with some caveats (like the 24 week rule, and Born Alive).  But consider the appalling medical conditions described in the Gosnell trial, and the aforementioned Orlando abortion instance.  Does this type of treatment represent the sentiments which President Obama alluded to when quoting President Bill J. Clinton that “Abortion should be rare, safe and legal”.

While none of the aforementioned clinics were run by Planned Parenthood, as they were doing the medically complicated and unsavory late term abortions, Planned Parenthood certainly may have referred to them to such houses of horror like Gosnell's Philadelphia clinic. This is the cosy relationship which allows taxpayers to expend $317 million in taxpayer funds in 2011 and Planned Parenthood can claim clean hands, while referring lucrative late term abortions to unseemly referral clinics where desperate women are coerced to get rid of a "problem" child for a big chunk of change. 

If abortionists routinely skirt the law on infants born alive and give sub-par medical treatment to women wanting abortions on the cusp of legally recognized viability, then how does it bode for other medical treatment, especially under Obamacare? 

Those who oppose abortion know that pro-choice people become uncomfortable when the ghastly  facts about abortion as practice are exposed.  That is why the Lamestream Media ignores cases like Gosnell and Hollywood stereotypes pro-lifers as hayseed, obsessed bitter clingers.  But as we are all being fed into the machine of Obamacare, people should be fully cognizant how medical ethics are being skirted for profit and professional integrity as well as the ethics of removing the voice for the defenseless such as  the unborn may soon imperil you.