The Gosnell case and Ann Furedi's reaction to it

Kermit Gosnell, the US abortionist, currently stands trial, accused of 43 offences, including the murder of seven babies and one woman at his abortion centre. However, the full extent of Gosnell's wickedness goes way beyond the eight counts of murder he is charged with.

The grand jury report on Gosnell was published in January 2011 and documents the full extent of Gosnell's activity. Hundreds, if not thousands, of born-alive babies have been brutally killed by Gosnell and his employees in the most appalling of ways.

Many of the photos are disturbing - bags containing baby remains stocked in freezers, severed feet kept in jars, photos of babies killed by having their spinal cord cut at the back of the neck, babies in the third trimester killed and thrown into bins, unsanitary operating rooms, serious injuries inflicted upon women, non-medically trained people employed in nursing roles, the list goes on. The full grand jury report can be seen in full here.

The trial itself has revealed even more horrific details about what went on in Gosnell's abortion facility. One former employee, Sherry West, described an incident which "really freaked (her) out" and related to the jury how she heard a child scream who was born alive following an abortion.

Another employee, Stephen Massof, testified that when women were given medicine to speed up their deliveries, "it would rain foetuses. Foetuses and blood all over the place."

Another Gosnell clinic worker testified that she took photos of one particularly large baby, referred to by prosecutors as "Baby A," with her cell phone that was estimated to be about 30-weeks gestation. Baby A had been delivered alive into a toilet where she cut the baby’s throat.

Dr. Sam Gulino, chief medical examiner for the City of Philadelphia, who discussed his examination of the remains of 47 foetuses seized by law enforcement authorities from his "House of Horrors" abortion clinic. The remains were frozen and stored in a variety of containers, including milk jugs and cat food cans.

Until a few days ago there was a media blackout - none of the mainstream media were covering the story, particularly because of the pro-abortion bias amongst journalists and news correspondents. This much has already been admitted by the likes of Melinda Henneberger of The Washington Post. LifeSiteNews.com have done a useful job recording recent media reactions to the lack of coverage. Bryan Kemper of Stand True did an excellent job of organising a Tweetfest, which SPUC fully supported, to break the media blackout. In the UK coverage has been provided by the Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, and the BBC. It's seems fair to say that the mainstream media, along with pro-lifers and the general public, now grasp something of the nature and extent of what happened.

Hopefully the few paragraphs above give some perspective, which is crucial for appreciating the comment below by Ann Furedi, the CEO of BPAS, a leading British abortion chain. Her comment is a response to an article by William Saletan writing in Slate. Simply compare the reality of what happened, with Furedi's comment below:

Having read the PA piece, what seems to be the problem with Gosnell is the conditions and quality of care at his clinic - and the fact that a shortage of later term doctors drives desperate women to pay large sums of money for what sounds like a pretty crap service. What a shame these women couldn't be treated by someone a bit better. His shoddy service must have made what was always going to be an ordeal into an unimaginable nightmare. I don't [think] this case speaks to the morality of later abortion or the moral status of the foetus at all.

So Furedi thinks that the horrors committed by Gosnell and his staff is no more than a "crap" and "shoddy" service. The photos of 30+ week babies laying dead in buckets, tiny infants with their necks cut says nothing about the morality of abortion or the humanity of the child? Furedi would like something "a bit better" for these mothers.

Before Furedi started enjoying her £115,000 a year salary as CEO of BPAS, she was a journalist for a magazine called Living Marxism, using the names Ann Burton, Ann Bradley, and later Ann Furedi after her marriage. Her radical pro-abortion stance, and seeming lack of compassion and empathy one would expect from any normal human being, is revealed in an article written in 1995, in which she writes about a man who made the following comment at a conference discussion on abortion and fetal pain: "I always thought abortion was for the benefit of the woman. The fetus is supposed to be dead. If it hurts them [unborn children], kill them quick." Furedi concluded: "He has a point."

I imagine Kermit Gosnell thought the same.