Gosnell links 4/15/13

Another Philadelphia abortionist testified for the prosecution today in Kermit Gosnell's murder trial.  While pro-choice bloggers are crowing about access to abortion in Philadelphia, today's witness notes that he is one of 4 abortionists left in the city. 

Dr. Charles Benjamin is one of about four abortion providers left in Philadelphia in the wake of Dr. Kermit Gosnell's arrest two years ago.  His testimony was received by "an influx of reporters."

Benjamin, by his own count, has performed 40,000 abortions over a 30-year career. He doesn't do them after 21 weeks, or three weeks shy of the 24-week limit in Pennsylvania, he said

Gosnell is accused of performing illegal, late-term abortions and running a dangerously outdated clinic staffed by untrained workers. Benjamin said that he has registered nurses on staff to monitor patients, and that only he or a nurse anesthetist give anesthesia, unlike Gosnell's clinic, where workers hired to clean instruments or handle paperwork have testified that Gosnell trained them to administer potent intravenous drugs......
   
An influx of reporters attended the trial Monday, spurred by criticism that some broadcasters were not covering the trial. A gag order prevents lawyers from speaking outside and no cameras are allowed inside the courtroom.

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a piece on how Gosnell cared for his turtles and fish.  While I've seen at least one individual claim it's a puff piece which promotes Gosnell, I see it as highlighting the absurd nature of a man who cared more for turtles and fish than infants who survived abortion. 


Shame and Twitter can be useful tools.  CBS News covered Gosnell this morning. 
                                   

James Taranto's best of the web column is focused on Gosnell today. 

Some pro-abortion commentators have denied that the horrors of the Women's Medical Society implicate their ideology. While they have little to say about the babies Gosnell allegedly killed, they certainly don't approve of the way he treated his pregnant patients, at least two of whom, according to the grand jury, ended up dead, with untold others mutilated or infected. No, these advocates assure us, they want abortion to be "safe and legal." (The Clintonian "rare" is not heard anymore. In a Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed last month, Kate Michelman of NARAL Pro-Choice America came right out and said that she wants abortion to be "common.")

But the grand jury--which described its members as covering "a spectrum of personal beliefs about the morality of abortion"--directly blamed "pro-choice" politics for the regulatory failure that allowed the clinic to remain open for decades....