Nightmare On 38th Street

Family Research Council

WARNING: The following story contains graphic descriptions.

What is "choice?" In Philadelphia, it's a doctor who takes rusty scissors and cuts into the necks of living, breathing babies. It's an inner-city torture chamber where "semiconscious, moaning women sat in dirty recliners and on bloodstained blankets." It's a filthy basement where "fetal remains filled bags, milk jugs, orange-juice cartons, and even cat-food containers" and "jars of severed [babies' feet]" sit on shelves. "Choice" is the house of horrors where 15-year-old high school students "perform intravenous anesthesia on patients" and "fetuses frequently clogged the toilet." It's the word that protects monsters like Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a man arrested yesterday for murdering newborn children and slicing open the women who delivered them. In his West Philadelphia "clinic," the hearts of thousands of babies stopped beating in rooms that "reeked of urine" and look more like combat zones than surgical centers.

After years of preying on poor women, Kermit Gosnell and his wife may face the death penalty, according to local officials. A 261-page grand-jury report was released yesterday from Philadelphia District Attorney's office, where Seth Williams says his "comprehension of the English language doesn't and cannot adequately describe" the nightmares detailed inside it. Testimonies like this one: "One premature infant wiggled around on a counter for 20 minutes before an untrained worker slit his neck--after first playing with him." Another employee said Gosnell joked about a baby writhing in pain: "'That's what you call a chicken with its head cut off.'"

The millionaire doctor raked in $15,000 a day--more than enough money to afford clean equipment and a trained staff. But, like so much of the abortion industry, his business wasn't about caring for women--it was about profit. And while the political arguments rage on, an outraged Williams says that it shouldn't matter what you believe about abortion. "There's more oversight for women's hair salons than for abortion clinics in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania," he said. Who knows how many other operations are out there, piling up tiny bodies in freezers while women lie helpless in their own blood? We may never know. Until America gets serious about protecting women with airtight regulations for abortion clinics, this is "choice." The kind our President condones, and our tax dollars allow.