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Some men are so wicked that even their death offers little comfort to the thousands of lives they destroyed. Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist who murdered countless newborn babies with his own hands, died this month at age 85 in a hospital bed — a far gentler end than the ‘snipping’ deaths he inflicted on innocent children. According to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, Gosnell passed away in custody, though details remain limited .
For decades, Gosnell operated what investigators called a ‘house of horrors’ in West Philadelphia, as detailed in the 2011 grand jury report. While the mainstream media looked away, he slaughtered babies born alive during botched abortions, cutting their spinal cords with scissors while they gasped for air. One baby, nearly six pounds and 30 weeks gestation, was so large that his arms and legs hung over the sides of the shoebox Gosnell tossed him into after murdering him, based on testimony from the 2013 trial.
Gosnell was convicted in 2013 on three counts of first-degree murder and one count of involuntary manslaughter after a woman died from unrecorded drug doses administered by his unlicensed staff, according to court records from the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. But those charges barely scratched the surface. Employees testified they witnessed hundreds of ‘snippings’ over the years, as noted in the same trial transcripts, and the grand jury report indicated they wanted to charge him with 200 murders, but political pressure from officials worried about crime statistics reduced the counts to seven.
Think about that for a moment. Law enforcement and politicians didn’t want their homicide numbers to spike, so they let a serial killer off easy. How many other Gosnells are still operating in cities across America, protected by a culture that treats abortion as sacred and accountability as optional?
The media blackout on Gosnell’s trial was so complete that even mainstream journalists admitted their shameful silence, as reported by outlets like The New York Times in retrospective pieces. When filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney tried to tell his story, they faced resistance from Hollywood and the press, according to interviews they gave to conservative media like Breitbart.
Gosnell’s death closes a chapter, but it doesn’t end the story. The same ideology that enabled him — that treats human life as disposable when inconvenient — still dominates our courts, our media, and our politics. The same Democratic Party that claims to care about ‘women’s health’ fought to protect monsters like this while smearing pro-life pregnancy centers, as evidenced by statements from party leaders during the trial coverage.
We don’t celebrate death, even the death of the wicked. But we also don’t pretend that 85 years was too short a sentence for a man who made his fortune butchering the most vulnerable among us. Gosnell will face a higher court now, one where political connections and falling crime statistics don’t matter.
Do you think the media would have covered Gosnell’s trial differently if he had been a pro-life activist? Share your thoughts below.
Providence watches over the bold.
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