There’s an African proverb that says that if you want to eat a toad, you should look for a fat and juicy one, so that if anyone calls you a toad eater you would answer to who you are.
Recently, I summoned up the courage to watch the 2018 Gosnell movie, the trial of American biggest serial killer, which is simply the story of physician who runs a filthy hospital in Philadelphia, filled with aborted body parts, who was arrested in 2011. Fainthearted, I opened all the windows, and sat trembling before the movie started, unsure of what I was about to witness. In the end I was glad I watched it, the movie was cleverly done, without traces of gore and more importantly, it answered the question I have been waiting to ask:
“What is the difference between Gosnell and the others abortion providers? The simple answer is none. Rather, he is more honest, because he embodies the American dream of effective and efficient service delivery. In 1972, he had experimented with inserting electric powered spinning knife blender into women’s womb and crushing babies like pawpaw juice, but it didn’t work and some many women died.
But America wants abortion and that is what Kermit Gosnell is all about. He is ready to deliver, fast and cheap, and good businesses, to compete, cut cost. Kermit Gosnell is a good business man, who knows that it is faster and safer to induce delivery and then kill the child rather than go inside a woman’s womb to kill a child. That’s the efficient way, the American way. Like he said those who made these laws are rambling idiot “I have no respect for any of them” and rightly so.
Gosnell lawyers put it more succinctly to the neatly dressed woman ( perhaps from Planned Parenthood) who testified during the trial that she has done more than 30000 abortions but never had to snipped the spine of “a born alive child” with a scissors.
“What would you do if you have a born alive?” The lawyer asked.
“We never have any,” the woman replied.
“That’s because you inject potassium chloride in to the womb to kill the baby, but hypothetically, what would you do if you have a “born alive?”
“We would make sure it is comfortable and allow it to die.”
“Wouldn’t it be more merciful to just snip its spine.” The lawyer asked the hypocritical jury. There was silence.
However, there are plenty of lessons in this movie for women who ask for abortion. The moment they take that decision they should not blame Kermit Gosnell for what happens next. It’s their call, their choice, their body. Similarly, the state of Philadelphia is saying to them, “Though it is your right to get rid of your baby, nevertheless, once you seek out people like Gosnell and place yourself in their hands, accept the consequences, don’t expect the state to interfere, inspect, or inquire.
America is likewise saying to them, “You want abortion; you get it, with all that comes with it. Don’t expect the press to report what happened, they aren’t going to do that because you won, women have won the right to do as they please with their bodies and we will let them.”
And why shouldn’t Gosnell’s clinic or any other abortion clinic for that matter, smell? Are killing fields expected to smell like roses? During the French Revolution, it was said that the fetid odor from the guillotine could be perceived from miles away. Likewise the grisly death camps of Auschwitz II-Birkenau did not smell of jasmine. What’s more, the child whose life is snuffed out garners no advantage even if the place was as exquisite as Buckingham palace.
Perhaps, the filthy smell and grime should have flagged the unfortunate women of the fowl thing they had embarked on. The filth should have brought them to their senses, to run away and put their trust in God who can unlock possibilities. Every abortion is a fitly act.
I would argue that Gosnell is the most honest face of American pro- choice or more accurately, pro-death movement. The filth and smell they decry are tangible manifestation of the final consequences of pro-death. Gosnell’s calloused indifference and self confidence mirrors the swaggering pro-choice America, champion of freedom, yet killers innocents. It’s the face of a legal system that protects dogs but permits egregious violence on the unborn. Gosnell calls out many Americans who, like ostrich, bury their heads in the sand rather than face what they know in conscience is evil and wrong.
In truth, the real hero of the movie is the relentless blogger who without pay and against the denigrating attitude of smug lawyers and police officers, managed to bring the trail to the world, thwarting the mainstream mafia code of silence. She deserves credit and she demonstrates that truth can no longer be gagged by money and politics. She stands as model of how social media could be used for good as opposed to frivolity or worse, evil.
by Chinwuba Iyizoba
Authors-choice: Hope & Revival 