Kermit Gosnell: Feminists Deny Abortion Doctor Cover Up and Blame Conservatives
As the Kermit Gosnell case proceeds, the grand jury report was released this week detailing the abortion doctor's house of horrors. Yet, as conservatives slam media outlets for their lack of coverage, the left reacted by saying that they had reported on Gosnell since his arrest in 2011, and how the pro-life movement is somehow responsible for the "underground" operation he set up in Philadelphia. While it's great that they wrote about Gosnell, it still isn't on the front page of the New York Times, LA Times, or the Washington Post. Furthermore, their narrative that pro-lifers — or anti-choicers — are somehow responsible for the Gosnell nightmare is nonsensical.
In the case of Salon.com, they tried to give Gosnell some cover, with Irin Carmon saying that there's been "copious" coverage from RH Reality Check, the Nation, and the Grio — all of which are progressive rags. OK, I'll give it to them that they were covering this story, but did they push it hard enough? They didn't. Hence, why it took the rest of the media two years to catch up.
As William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection posted today that all of the sites Carmon cited as evidence were written to protect abortion rights, tried cast Gosnell as some sort of aberration, and evidently proved that only a handful of feminist writers reported on it. He wrote:
"Compare national media coverage to OJ, Dahmer, Newtown, etc. No one claims that there has been no coverage whatsoever, but the contrast is stark. So stark that The Washington Post has issued an apology, or sorts: Washington Post pledges Gosnell coverage. Why did Salon.com engage in this dodge, this attempt to shout “Look, Squirrel!” in the midst of growing Twitter outrage over the lack of mainstream media coverage of the Gosnell trial and the testimony? For the same reason a few “feminist” writers wrote about the case back in 2011 — to protect abortion rights and to present Gosnell as an outlier, the exception which proves the pro-choice rule."
Additionally Carmon, along with fellow lefty blogger Amanda Marcotte, insinuated that legislation, like the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding of abortion is also to blame for these atrocities. Yet, this isn't even an issue. The Hyde Amendment wasn't controversial, it had bipartisan support in the House, and Joe Biden voted for it in the Senate. Only the mind of a liberal can one think it's fine for taxpayers to fund infanticide. Luckily, most Americans don't support taxpayer-funded abortion.
So, if feminist and left-wing bloggers are mad because they felt ignored, then welcome to our world. It still doesn't negate the fact that the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, CBS, NBC, and ABC aren't putting this story on their front pages — or reporting next to nothing about it in their broadcasts. This is deliberate political censorship.
It's not a question about why feminists were ignored, or why their colleagues in the media chose to because they still disregarded them in the end. They blew the communications game on this one. Then again, why didn't they push harder to show Gosnell's atrocities? While liberals may be horrified by this man, they still haven't clearly articulated whether they're against post-birth abortion. Planned Parenthood feels otherwise, but what the left has stated is that to prevent more Gosnells, we must make infanticide easier to perform. Lastly, saying what Gosnell did was illegal isn't the same as saying it's morally wrong to kill a baby when he/she already been born.