The under-reporting of this story by the national mainstream media is cause for both alarm and outrage. You’d think the sheer volume of accusations and candid, shocking testimony was just too big to ignore – but they’ve managed to largely do just that. Connor Adams Sheets writes in the IB Times [1]:
Dr. Kermit Gosnell faces the death penalty if he is convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder for a range of grisly tactics he allegedly employed to terminate late-term fetuses at his Philadelphia abortion clinic between 2008 and 2010, when it was shut down following a federal raid.
Horrific testimony in the trial over the last couple of weeks has revealed tales of the abortionist and his workers at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society clinic allegedly snipping fetuses’ spines [2] with scissors to “ensure fetal demise,” jars of terminated fetuses’ feet that Gosnell allegedly kept at the clinic [3], and a baby “screeching … like a little alien” [4] during a so-called live-birth abortion procedure allegedly performed at the clinic.
The trial has been watched closely by many pro-life and conservative groups, including LifeNews.com [5], which has reported extensively [6] on the developments, but many in the pro-life movement, as well as some pro-choice folks who are shocked by the nature of Gosnell’s alleged crimes, are asking why mainstream media outlets are largely ignoring this story.
The Associated Press [2], local newspapers like the Philadelphia Inquirer [7] and the Delaware News-Journal [8], and local TV stations like NBC Philadelphia [9] have reporters covering Gosnell’s trial, but several of the major news networks have dedicated precious few moments of airtime — if any at all — to the case.
The media watchdog site NewsBusters.org [10] has been covering this lack of attention in some depth, and it reported Tuesday [11] that over the past week, ABC, CBS and NBC had not spent a second covering the ongoing Gosnell trial; by comparison, the major three networks dedicated a total of 41 minutes and 26 seconds of airtime to 36 stories on the scandal surrounding disgraced Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice.
This is disgusting, yes, but not surprising, considering our mainstream media’s largely liberal, “pro-choice” mindset. As Fox News analyst Brit Hume said [12], “This is where the culture of abortion can lead” and the abortion-on-demand-mindset crowd doesn’t want you to take a peek inside the ugly world that is an abortion clinic, whether the clinic does “humane” abortions or not … as if abortions, especially late term ones, can be considered “humane” [13] no matter the “care” demonstrated by the doctor during the procedure. As I asked last night on Twitter:
Q for #fem2 [14]: To say Gosnell did not use “humane” methods is putting it mildly but what, pray tell, is a “humane” way to abort the unborn ..?
— Sister Toldjah (@sistertoldjah) April 10, 2013 [15]
I rest my case.
Flashback: