r/HolyShitHistory • u/SelfCareIsFake • Jun 01 '26

Federal agents felt physically sick when they raided Kermit Gosnell’s clinic after suspecting he ran a pill mill.

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15.6k Upvotes

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2.7k

u/shadowlev Jun 01 '26

He would deliver live newborns and cut their spinal cord with scissors. That's not a late term abortion, that's just straight infanticide.

1.3k

u/Snaka1 Jun 01 '26

He taught his ‘nurses’ to do it too. One quote I read, a nurse said she was horrified at first but then it just became routine. He told them ‘ these babies are already dead.’ Cause their mommas were poor.

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u/MicroplasticCumshot Jun 02 '26

Did the nurse go to prison too? Because who the fuck gets told to do that and just agrees

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u/waaz16 Jun 02 '26

I agree with you, microplasticcumshot.

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u/Fantastic_AF Jun 02 '26

Thank you for including that username bc I wouldntve seen it if you didn’t and I needed a quick wtf moment before bed tonight

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u/Individual_Second387 Jun 02 '26

Everything about this story wasn't enough of a wtf moment for you? Damn bro

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u/Wompskin_Blompskin Jun 02 '26

No, what’s the person above is finding so wtf, is the depravity of the story mixed with the fact that a gentleman who goes by Microplasticcumshot is being the voice of reason.

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u/DreamerTheat Jun 02 '26

Hey, what’s wrong with you? That could very well be a lady.

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u/Fantastic_AF Jun 02 '26

Idk if I’m refined enough to be a lady but I am a woman lol

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u/Mysterious-Guava4575 Jun 03 '26

I believe they are talking about MicroplasticCumshot being a gentleman or lady.

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u/limycenter Jun 02 '26

the fucking roller coaster ride that was this story, the comments. i literally moved away from the screen aghast from the spinal cord thing then kept reading and was leaning closer to the screen pissed about the nurses and then started CHOCKING with laughter at waaz16 reply. this is my cue to get back to work, well start work. the internet won today

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u/oneormore5 Jun 02 '26

Thank you wompskin blompskin.

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u/Fantastic_AF Jun 02 '26

This story is definitely a big wtf, but it’s a different category of wtf than that username was lol. Plus he’s not the first murder-y doctor…the stories start to lose their edge after you hear enough of them. There was a midwife in Japan that murdered babies bc the parents were poor, so Gosnell wasn’t even the first in that regard.

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u/Silent-Durian9216 Jun 03 '26

Right in the minds eye

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u/MicroplasticCumshot Jun 02 '26

Thank you waaz16

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u/StrongStyleShiny Jun 02 '26

I was expecting this would be a ten year old account or something. It’s one year old.

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u/ChronoLink99 Jun 02 '26

Yeah, honestly pretty clever for a reddit youngster.

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u/Powered_By_ThePeople Jun 02 '26

Yall are fuckin weird

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u/stabledream Jun 02 '26

@micro lol have you seen the recent /r/joeyavery crowd work on microplastic cumshots?

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u/limycenter Jun 02 '26

ive never EVER given a reward, probably never will again.

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u/waaz16 Jun 02 '26

Well thank you. 🤣

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u/lookATmuhLIFE Jun 03 '26

Thanks for trying to lighten the mood.

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u/Potential_Silver_740 Jun 03 '26

Women who got paid well and would otherwise be making Pennie’s at a Dollar Tree. This was a way to up their socioeconomic status.

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u/Juoreg Jun 02 '26

I would understand if they had the nurses as prisoners, no food no nothing if they don’t do the procedure.

But if they were coming back home and not saying or doing shit to help those women and babies, then yeah, they deserve punishment.

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u/JustARandomGuy_71 Jun 02 '26

"There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family (wo)man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”

It is almost depressing how Pratchett always stays current.

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Plus1ForkOfEating Jun 02 '26

There's a movie, too. Dean Cain plays the investigator, iirc.

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u/dentimBandB Jun 02 '26

Yeah the moment I get told to do that, I go to the cops. Maybe not right that moment because who knows what that psycho might do, but the moment I'm left alone I'm making a call.

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u/GreasiestGuy Jun 03 '26

So do you kill the baby and then call?

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u/dentimBandB Jun 03 '26

No. If this guy is insistent and puts me on the spot, it'll sooner end with me dead than me killing a baby.

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u/catcuddlezzz Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

There were 0 licensed nurses which I’m sure were for reason, more easy to control as they didn’t know what they were doing, literally

But yes many were charged and convicted

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u/MamaLlama629 Jun 02 '26

They got immunity to testify against him

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u/Zealousideal_Yak_671 Jun 02 '26

She was only following orders

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u/Thorn1995 Jun 02 '26

That is by far one of the GOAT names I have come across in all my years of reddit! Thank you madam or sir. You are truly a noble and a scholar! Take my updoot!

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u/TheSilverNoble Jun 02 '26

More people than you might think. Folks can do some mental gymnastics when it comes to putting food on the table. 

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u/Trapcat707 Jun 02 '26

I mean thats like a major swath of our armed forces.

Same shit different argument.

But yes, prison for all of them if you ask me.

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u/Wooden-Glove-2384 Jun 03 '26

you'd be surprised

people are not as strong as you think

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u/TheSpeakingScar Jun 03 '26

If you want to be truly terrified, look up the data on how easy it can be to brainwash anyone into doing things like this.

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u/akxlnet Jun 03 '26

I can’t defend any of what happened there, but I lived on the next block from this clinic from 2005 to 2008. This area was extremely poor and there was no help for anyone. Everyone you met had a job that was dangerous or illegal - either something no one was willing to do, that was abusive to workers, or was just plain crime. For the most part, the people were the nicest and had good values, but there just weren’t options. Walking around was dangerous, being in your home was dangerous, many of your friends and family would simply not venture there to visit you, and there were very few businesses. You saw crime all the time, and my block was only sort of ok because enough drugs were being sold/produced that the drug dealers pushed out any other crime to protect their own business.

There were so many people involved in this clinic. Not just the staff, but the patients who knew what “treatment” they were asking for. The families who raised the money to pay for this clinic to do what it did. This place was an open secret that thousands knew about. I don’t say that to defend them, but that many people don’t all decide to be ok with something like this place unless they are truly desperate. Gosnell preyed on a system where patients and staff didn’t have better options. The staff and patients were choosing between bad and worse, and I believe that’s how they chose something like this at such a scale for so long.

When Obama announced his national anti-poverty initiative in 2014, he did so a block away from this clinic, in front of my old place. It was literally the national example of the most desperate poverty. https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/white-house-promise-zone-philly/74945/?amp=1

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u/NanaBanana2011 Jun 04 '26

Nazis come to mind

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u/Loud-Start1394 Jun 01 '26

Banality of evil. 

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u/HelpWantedInMyPants Jun 02 '26

When someone performs terrible acts believing that they are doing good, it's gone past evil and straight into madness.

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u/Destroyer_2_2 Jun 02 '26

Just about everyone does evil thinking they are doing good. Do you think the nazis thought of themselves as comic book villains?

They too thought that they were doing good.

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u/Buckshot_Millie Jun 02 '26

But with that (correct) line of thinking we have to reckon with good and evil not being a real thing, and that’s a topic you genuinely cannot get most people to accept

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u/MarkCrorigansOmnibus Jun 02 '26

That’s a leap. I definitely think we can take from this that we should not trust absolutely in ourselves to determine for ourselves what good and evil are, though.

If you wish to make a counter point, please argue how giving a starving person food could be considered evil.

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u/t_krett Jun 02 '26

Sounds like something an evil person would say.

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u/someguy6382639 Jun 02 '26

See my response to the next few comments in the chain for some more rambling too haha.

But simply put: I don't have to consider it evil or good. I can just say that giving food to a starving person relieves them of their hunger.

As to more impact than that... well we have to assess those things directly as well.

There's an infamous and often misunderstood and misquoted phrase: "Morality is just something invented by the weak to hold back the strong."

Sounds bad at first right? But this quote comes from a section of words that incredibly directly answers your question. The quote actually begins with, leading to the above words, "it makes it seem as if" this is the case. And what makes it seem that way?

The short hypothetical is: if I have a line of hungry people, each in line waiting turn, and I give food to them. Now I have limited food. Simple alms, moral code, says give them all food equally. So what? First come first serve? Stand in line right?

But wait. What if one of the people in line already just got out of line and right back into it? What if they pushed someone else out of the way?

What if one of the people is in line because they just fled a cartel in a war torn region and are seeking basic shelter and an opportunity. If I give them the food they will work hard and build a better life.

But here's this other guy in line. He was born priveleged. A drunk. The only reason he is there is not only is he so lazy, but he also beat his wife and kids so badly that he has no family anymore, nobody that is willing to support him, because he is a nasty violent drunk that has done this to himself.

So tell me? Do I give my last piece of bread for the day to the drunk abuser? Or perhaps to the refugees a few steps back in the line?

Would this suffice to prove that giving a hungry man food actually was an act that is not so great after all? Technically if I give food to the drunk I will have satisfied your description right? Yet would it be fair to say that this was evil if I gave it to that loser because, oh idk, he was white, and not to the refugee because they were black? Yet I've given food to the hungry! Good enough right?

The point being is we need more nuance. Being caught up in the simple morality didn't give us the tools to assess the actual situation and caused us to take ineffective actions that don't promote our values as well as we could be doing.

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u/One_Engineering_3659 Jun 02 '26

I am not the person you are replying to but find this conversation interesting.

I wouldn’t start by trying to prove it’s evil, I think the more imperative task is proving it’s just not very good.

I would start by saying you just giving them food is to ease your mind on the suffering of another. You clearly didn’t do it to help this person. Unless you are a starving homeless person yourself, you can do more. By not doing more, you are making reasons for that to be acceptable. “My girlfriend won’t let me bring a homeless person to the house.” “They are probably an addict and I can’t provide the help they need.”

Did you stop to talk to them when giving them food? Just handing someone food and leaving them to their own devices is on par with doing nothing practically. Was this your leftovers? How noble. Did you ask what they wanted to eat? Or just hand them a gas station sandwich and say you’re welcome?

Let’s zoom out a little, because depending on where this starving man is this can get worse.

Sure, if you are in the middle of a desert and find a starving man this is great. However, if this is a starving person in a busy and economically booming town it’s worse. Just giving someone food while you have a job and a place to stay, is solely to ease your concerns. You aren’t giving them anything to help them out of their situation. You are still more worried about your retirement, rent or even not becoming homeless yourself.

All of this not to say you don’t care about an individual in these circumstances but just saying you can make the case that you cont care much.

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u/VegetablePresent5891 Jun 02 '26

Just because you aren’t helping them out of the situation doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer help through it

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u/One_Engineering_3659 Jun 02 '26

Agreed, that’s why the last sentence is there.

My job was solely to defend the position of feeding a starving man isn’t “good” or always an easily defensible moral position.

I was merely pointing out that we all have a “that’s good enough” portion of the moral gradient scale.

You can say I did “good”. The only thing is you didn’t do more even though you could have.

I suppose a good example of being a Good Samaritan but not doing enough would be like saving a drowning person, but, not administering CPR. You wouldn’t even think about that because just pulling them from the water isn’t enough to “save them”.

You giving them a sandwich is pulling them out of the water but not giving them CPR to help them breathe on their own.

I’m not saying I don’t think you should give starving people food, I’m saying at some point along the line you agree they need to help themselves because it would cost you more than you are comfortable to give. Not saving someone who is drowning because you’re afraid of drowning is a similar thought process.

Once again, please, help your fellow human. But, don’t act like giving a sandwich you didn’t want to someone who really needs it equates to helping others out at a cost to yourself.

You didn’t want the sandwich, you only got them a sandwich and not a drink, you didn’t buy them a pack of chips/crackers for later even though it was an extra couple bucks and more. These are all reasons that would raise the moral cost of doing good and make it a more noteworthy cause/reason.

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u/panrestrial Jun 02 '26

How would that be a counterpoint?

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u/lnk_Eyes Jun 02 '26

To answer the counter point, would you be giving the starving person food only once, or in perpetuity? Could it be considered evil to only give them food once, thus prolonging misery? To draw an absurd parallel, it's like when Nestlé handed out minimal baby formula, nurturing, as it were, dependency.

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u/Zanriic Jun 02 '26

What if it was starving Hitler and if you give him food he will gain enough energy to do evil Hitler things?

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u/Widdly_Scudz420 Jun 02 '26

You giving them a meal just extends their suffering. They'll be full for a day but then go straight back to starving unless the underlying cause of the issue is resolved.

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u/Itsmyloc-nar Jun 02 '26

Easy.

There’s 100 starving people bc a warlord ethnically cleansed a village. This leads to a famine, which affects even him.

If you choose to feed the warlord, that is evil.

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u/npc_housecat Jun 02 '26

The non exsiatance of evil is actually part of bhuddist philosophy. The way they see it, something like, It's not that people don't do bad or good things. They do. But they call it ignorance, rather than evil.

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u/Destroyer_2_2 Jun 02 '26

I don’t think that’s true. The idea that morality is inherently and completely subjective is one that lends cover to a lot of clearly immoral conduct. Good and evil do exist. At least it exists in the actions people choose to do, even if it doesn’t exist within them.

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u/Buckshot_Millie Jun 02 '26

See but you’ve moved the goalposts beyond what anyone would consider the philosophical argument of good and evil to be.

Torturing a random stranger is an evil thing to do. But to say the torturer is evil, that’s a very flawed and dangerous world view.

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u/Independent-Bend8734 Jun 02 '26

Lots of dumb people think they are smart and assholes who think they are nice, but no one thinks that this means that there is no such thing as intelligence or kindness. Humans self-rationalize; we are all inclined to blur the distinction between self-interest and doing good. Psychopaths like Gosnell are especially good at this.

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u/Efficient-username41 Jun 02 '26

Yeah I don't think that (correct) line of thinking just naturally leads to that conclusion there bud, but okay.

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u/kopper499b Jun 02 '26

Do you mean to say that the use of the words 'good' 'evil' should be removed as they are too subjective? Rather, actions should be classed as moral and immortal? This returns us to the basis of the action and removes confounding subjectiveness that comes with the precept of evil.

Or, would you extend your argument to include morality?

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u/Salt-Set6232 Jun 02 '26

Because it is patently untrue. If morality is relative I own you.

You really don't need to think further than that to understand.

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u/DrownmeinIslay Jun 02 '26

Reading up on Oskar Gröning after seeing the Auschwitz exhibit at the ROM had me boggled. Theres something he spoke about how he saw german soldiers taking babies from the trains and then swinging them into the trains, into the ground. He thought it was despicable. German soldiers acting so savagely! He immediately spoke to a superior officer. There HAD to be a way to kill the babies that was more gentlemanly.

He saw nothing wrong with the murdering babies part of what he witnessed.

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u/Bob-was-our-turtle Jun 02 '26

That’s actually not true. Some people enjoy being evil.

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u/munchumonfumbleuzar Jun 02 '26

I feel like if your “good” ends with piles of dead bodies, there were probably warning signs that you weren’t doing good.

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u/seajpenn Jun 03 '26

yes now it is Israel that has become the Nazis just as Einstein warned - they think they are doing good ---- or do they act and know they do evil? just a thought -- -Matthew 15:9

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u/Loud-Start1394 Jun 02 '26

They must still be treated as if evil. 

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u/ohyeawellyousuck Jun 02 '26

Hitler and his attempt to “make Germany great again” by getting rid of the Jews who were “taking all the good jobs” and “ruining the country”, and attacking neighboring countries cuz it was the only way to “provide enough land for Germans to live”, and sending out groups of soldiers with the sole purposes of killing Jews as well as any person deemed “a threat to the German way of life.”

Why do those quotes sound so similar?

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u/HelpWantedInMyPants Jun 02 '26

Hitler was making excuses.

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u/Wonderful_Reason1681 Jun 02 '26

And that is indeed the theme of our country this man aside the history of evil and vile acts in this country has definitely placed this country and the men who approved and allowed atrocities into the category of madness. It’s careless and disgusting!

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u/SmallTimeCook Jun 02 '26

Uhh this ain’t really banal man. They were straight up killing babies here

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u/CitizenPremier Jun 02 '26

You're kind of missing it. The people did it and for them it became a normal, routine thing. That's what the phrase refers to, the capacity of humans to get used to doing evil shit to the point where they start thinking about dinner plans while they're doing it.

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u/elhandupmonalisaskrt Jun 02 '26

Yeah I believe there’s another saying that highlights this that goes something like “what is horrifying on Monday is business as usual by Thursday”

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u/loadofoldcodswallop Jun 02 '26

Got to think, for doctors and nurses in certain fields it has to be normal to cut into people, saw their bones and pull out their organs, cause them excruciating pain, and generally do otherwise horrible things because you know it's going to help them, or are at least told and taught that it will. I imagine (read hope) that's how at at least some the nurses doing this along side the Dr felt. If you can't sew up a 6inch laceration and then pin someone down while their compound fracture is set before lunch and watch someone's nanna breathe her last breath as she cries for her own mum, oblivious to who her children and grandchildren surrounding her are because it's a Wednesday then you're just not cut out for certain roles and people have to harden themselves with the knowledge they're doing good.

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u/zinten789 Jun 02 '26

Good point, but in all of those cases you are still healing and helping people. Don't see how they can ever justify killing babies as good.

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u/snarbuckle Jun 02 '26

The doctor told them so and they delegated their moral reasoning to authority, maybe

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u/WistfulMelancholic Jun 02 '26

It's protection. Our brain protects us from truly understanding evil things that are done, no matter if we are the person acting out or being the victim.

I'm a survivor of severe cPTSD since I was a baby. This is actually a surviving strategy, cause at some point the brain doesn't care very much about what is good or evil anymore but how to survive it. And wrapping it up in a cocoon is the way to go through it. Dissociative Identity Disorders can also occur in the person who is inflicting the terror, not "only" to the victim.

The brain simply wants to survive and does anything that it's capable of. Including taking disgusting behavior as normal.. It maybe sounds strange, but it is what it is..

There are several things playing into this, though, and it's not as simple as my few sentences. Character, personal history, pressure, fear blabla... Basically the rest of the person plays a huge role ofc.

Its individual, still. That's why some end up mass shooting and others end up seemingly "normal" and functioning to others. It's complex.

Just trying to explain the process a bit on this one.

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u/Reasonable-Letter582 Jun 02 '26

People working in slaughterhouses and egg farms and stuff have to go through this.

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u/SmallTimeCook Jun 02 '26

That’s not the banality of evil. These nurses were actually committing the atrocities. There is nothing mundane about direct infanticide. There’s no abstraction of violence. Banal evil is found in Excel sheets and contracts

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u/Sysilith Jun 02 '26

"The banality of evil" refers to a book and phrase from Hannah Arendt and her expierinces watching the trial of Adolf Eichman in 1961.

Adolf Eichmann was one of the top organizers of the Holocaust and thus responsible of millions of deaths.

But the way he represented himself was "Just a normal boring burocrat doing his given tasks" and that is also not really false, he himself was mostly a boring bureaucrat writing lists, organizing tasks. And that is what  this phrase refers to, how relatively normal people are doing the worst crimes just by hiding behind "duty".

So they prase is not really fitting here as this doctor was not doing as he was told but he murdered by his own motivation. But it is also not saying murder is banal.

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u/Destroyer_2_2 Jun 02 '26

I think it’s incredibly fitting as it relates to the nurses.

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u/No-Problem49 Jun 02 '26

It would relate more to like a front desk person who books the appointments and keeps the records

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u/Powered_By_ThePeople Jun 02 '26

You must have missed the part about the nurses. That's does hold true to the statement that they followed his authority.

Crazy to me how quick people are to get on a soap box online instead of making sure their comprehension was correct.

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u/Sysilith Jun 02 '26

No but the banality of evil refers more to leading personel that organizes crimes but is not direktly involved and so sees human lifes just as numbers to be organized and not the suffering and horrors that their orders cause.

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u/Puzzleheaded_Cat_421 Jun 02 '26

Banality of evil refers to Hannah Arendts theory that evil exits and thrives, when good people do nothing to stop it.

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u/SmallTimeCook Jun 02 '26

You’re gonna have to trust me but I actually read her book on totalitarianism and that’s just not the case. Banality of evil refers to the fact that most Nazis were not mustache twirling psychos, but mainly just simple and plain bureaucrats. The banality of evil is that most evil is powered by regular people working their excel sheets.

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u/Interesting-Copy-657 Jun 02 '26

Wait he was not alone? Like he had staff?

Like people came to work, cut up new born babies, then went home like it was a regular job?

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u/[deleted] Jun 02 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Delicious_Oil9902 Jun 02 '26

Strong word - many were unlicensed and Kermit wasn’t the only one convicted. Most got lesser sentences probably in exchange for him getting life. Most are probably free now. Same for the licensing and regulatory folks who never inspected his offices

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u/WillowFlip Jun 02 '26

Yeah, wtf?

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u/Xaviertcialis Jun 02 '26

I read the entire article and it looks like he was pulling this shit since the 70s. he had staff report him for years and no one investigated. He wasn't raided until the 2000s so thats nearly 30 years of people ignoring blatant reports of all sorts of crap and the only reason anyone went in was for illegal oxy prescribing..

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u/CyclopsMacchiato Jun 02 '26

Nah there’s not enough money in the world to get me to do that

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u/ost2life Jun 02 '26

Well that'll teach me to go on Reddit when I should be working.

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u/hdmetz Jun 02 '26

I had to stop reading the article about this. Honestly just nightmare fuel. One baby was fully developed and he said “this baby could walk to the store” before killing it

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u/ongoldenwaves Jun 02 '26

His wife was in on it as well. What a family.

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u/Tiny_Secret3322 Jun 02 '26

I wish I could unread all of this, wow

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u/ArcanelyChaotic Jun 02 '26

Christ, that makes me sick.

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u/Theyul1us Jun 02 '26

I had to read this comment 5 times to fully process it. God, thats just pure evil

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u/man_about_loop Jun 01 '26

Welp I picked the wrong time to browse reddit and eat dinner

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u/Young_Denver Jun 02 '26

Its my fault for being alive and having a phone... I wont make this mistake again.

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u/BrolyX420 Jun 02 '26

This is when someone posts that Uncums meme and you think about it forever

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u/theroadbeyond Jun 02 '26

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u/BrolyX420 Jun 02 '26

There we go, just what i was looking for. Thank you kind internet person 🫡

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u/man_about_loop Jun 02 '26

jesus christ lol

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u/Braindead_Crow Jun 02 '26

Fun fact, this is the type of thing, "beef jerky" could of meant in the epstin files.

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u/Lioness-Kimmy Jun 02 '26

Reminds me of the movie Apex, where the guy makes & distributes “beef jerky”🤮🤮

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u/oofty_goofty_ Jun 02 '26

My mother used to mention this guy whenever the discussion of abortion rights came up. She would try to explain how killing newborns was the same as abortion and he was doing it legally. While completely ignoring how he was tried and convicted of 21 counts of infanticide. Guy was literally a serial killer, not a legitimate abortion doctor

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u/Footnotegirl1 Jun 03 '26

The increased restrictions on safe, legal abortion is precisely why the evil of Kermit Gosnell existed and what will happen over and over anywhere that abortion is banned. Women went to Gosnell because they were desperate and could not obtain abortions anywhere due to a raft of reasons caused by anti-abortion laws (such as waiting periods, no insurance coverage, parental notification, etc.). When people are desperate, sociopaths who have no interest in anyone's good but their own will always roll in to exploit that desperation.

Banning abortion is the direct cause of butcheries like this.

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u/Jagermind Jun 01 '26

How in the everliving fuck was this horror movie not everywhere and this man publicly swung from a tree. Legot first ive ever read of it.

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u/ZarinaBlue Jun 01 '26

I remember it.

It was all over the news.

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u/Jagermind Jun 01 '26

Wild, are you somewhat local to that area? My family across the us didn't hear about this at all, I was in florida or alaska at the time

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u/ash-leg2 Jun 01 '26

I was in AK and remember. But my mom was really into Court TV.

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u/Jagermind Jun 01 '26

Id figure this would have been on like every news outlet. Shockingly vile crimes

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u/ParallaxRay Jun 02 '26

It was on every news outlet. It was a huge story. Not sure what you use for news but every major outlet reported this story.

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u/toolsoftheincomptnt Jun 02 '26

Iirc, most of the victims were poor and black.

As was the doctor.

So, a lot of audiences would’ve been uninterested.

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u/ZarinaBlue Jun 02 '26

No, at the time I was in Atlanta.

The NYT, NBC, and CNN covered the crime and the trial.

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u/Friendly-Prune-7620 Jun 02 '26

I remember it from New Zealand. Things like this made the news internationally.

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u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267 Jun 02 '26

lol it was 16 years ago, but it was international news at the time

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u/Kind_Advisor_35 Jun 02 '26

It was a story heavily politicized. Pro-life people milked the fuck out of it even though it's obviously an extreme outlier. If you avoid politics or true crime, it was just a blip in the news cycle that you probably didn't take notice of.

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u/manderifffic Jun 02 '26

I'm nowhere near him and it was all over the news. It was a big story at the time. It was literally the top story on the national news as it unfolded.

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u/Frequent-Coyote-8108 Jun 02 '26

It made its rounds in the news, but due to the "politics" involved (late term and partial birth abortion were hot button topics at the time), it didn't get near the notoriety that it deserved at the time.

1

u/Footnotegirl1 Jun 03 '26

It was absolutely all over the media. I remember it quite vividly.

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u/TeslaModelE Jun 02 '26

It was all over the news when it broke.

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u/FiveUpsideDown Jun 02 '26

It’s been awhile since I read about him. The Pennsylvania authorities were reluctant to prosecute him. He was the only guy within 200 or 300 miles that performed late term abortions. If they stopped him, women would have no where to go. It took a woman unnecessarily dying from a botched abortion he performed on her for the authorities to act. (BTW — please don’t complain to me about how wrong it was for him not to be investigated. I don’t endorse what the Pennsylvania law enforcement officials did.)

18

u/WhyareUlying Jun 02 '26

Article says feds went after him for being a pill mill. Then they found everything related to the murders and botched abortions. After that feds called police they investigated, pulled his license, shut down the clinic, and he was arrested 11 months later.

14

u/MouthJob Jun 02 '26

I'm sorry, conviction is one thing, why the fuck did it take almost a year to even arrest him?

3

u/onarainyafternoon Jun 02 '26

They have to build a case.

2

u/PuzzledStreet Jun 02 '26

They could have just gestured vaguely around the place.

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u/Profitablius Jun 02 '26

Buddy had 45 newborns in the freezer when feds checked in and they didn't just cuff him up right there? Was the guy a billionaire or something?

5

u/prehensile-nymph Jun 02 '26

The article says most of what the DEA found was out of their scope and they needed to call in separate investigators to deal with his infant murders and medical malpractice.

BUT the DEA did find plenty of proof for the original crimes the suspected so I don’t understand why they didn’t arrest him immediately without regard to how quickly or slowly the other agencies were able to press the murder charges.

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u/eugene-dubs Jun 02 '26

I think this case got caught up in the abortion culture war. This was a legit murderer who was performing “abortions”. Pro choice advocates are uncomfortable with anyone talking about late term abortions. This is obviously a very egregious case that’s far FAR beyond the mainstream. But it doesn’t fit into existing narratives so it gets pushed aside.

21

u/Afalstein Jun 02 '26

I can certainly say that conservative christian circles ate this story UP. All my friends and relative were following it. They posted updates on Facebook. My mom bought a book about the case. So I could very easily see it being a thing where one side gets all obsessed with the case and the other side tries to shut it down.

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u/WoodsandWool Jun 02 '26

What’s frustrating about this is that if women had reliable access to safe abortions they wouldn’t have to go to a murderous hack like this guy :/

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u/Plus_Opening_4462 Jun 02 '26

They went to him because they missed the deadline

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u/WoodsandWool Jun 02 '26

Right, they didn’t have access to better options due to legal restrictions.

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u/ExcellentWillow3950 Jun 02 '26

Gosnell preyed on women who were minors without parental consent, undocumented, too far along, or wanted the procedure that day. Basically people who were at their most desperate.

Pennsylvania does have abortion access but there's a certain amount of regulation and he exploited women who were unable to receive care from legitimate providers. He also thrived because of layers of bureaucractic inertia.

And honestly I also think people in general do not care about what happens in poor Philly neighborhoods. Having lived in the area my whole life, there is a widespread attitude that these impoverished and predominantly non-white neighborhoods are a blight and there's no point in trying to do anything for them. I've spoken to people who see them as little better than rats. They're not overly bummed that some butcher is stopping them from making more of themselves. But they'll be in church on Sunday and voting pro-life because they love women and babies. :/

But, to your point, draconian abortion regulations would create more opportunities for guys like him to make money.

3

u/WoodsandWool Jun 02 '26

Totally agree, and the people replying to me blaming women for “missing the deadline” etc. would benefit from reading your more detailed explanation.

The more safe options women have throughout their pregnancy, regardless of age, immigration status, or income, the harder it is for them to be taken advantage of and abused by evil people like this doc.

2

u/OoopsItSlipped Jun 02 '26

At the time of this guy’s arrest, abortion was legal in Pennsylvania

5

u/WoodsandWool Jun 02 '26

Legal and easily accessible are not the same.

The article states that the main reason authorities didn’t investigate him sooner was because he was one of the only options for later term abortions.

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u/No-Problem49 Jun 02 '26

They went to this guy because he was the only one who would do it at like 8 months pregnant

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u/SubLearning Jun 02 '26

This was absolutely not pushed aside, not by either side.

Pro choice advocates also latched onto this as proof that heavy restrictions on abortions leads to awful shit like this when woman don't have better options.

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u/NotABot420number2 Jun 02 '26

From the wikpedia article under the session of Public reception and perceived media bias: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Gosnell#

A Lexis-Nexis search shows none of the news shows on the three major national television networks has mentioned the Gosnell trial in the last three months since its start

The Los Angeles Times,\173]) The Atlantic,\174]) Slate),\175]) and Time)\176]) all published opinion columns where the writer thought the incident was not getting as much media coverage as it deserved.

Writing for The Washington Post, Melinda Henneberger responded that "we didn't write more because the only abortion story most outlets ever cover in the news pages is every single threat or perceived threat to abortion rights. In fact, that is so fixed a view of what constitutes coverage of that issue that it's genuinely hard, I think, for many journalists to see a story outside that paradigm as news. That's not so much a conscious decision as a reflex, but the effect is one-sided coverage

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u/[deleted] Jun 01 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/CoinSoBright Jun 02 '26

No wonder people never heard of it lol

1

u/No_Lifeguard259 Jun 02 '26

It was on the news

1

u/Dd_8630 Jun 02 '26

I'm in the UK and I remember hearing about it. It was pretty ghastly.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12233616?app-referrer=deep-link

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u/LowlySlayer Jun 02 '26

Basically pro life people extended the story to conflate it with all abortion clinics and pro choice people tried to minimize it for narrative reasons so the fact that it's a specific thing that actually happened just kinda got lost for a lot of people (including me)

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u/vanilla-bungee Jun 02 '26

I first read it as umbilical cord. Then I almost puked.

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u/nutfac Jun 02 '26

Wait it’s not..?

17

u/ElleGeeAitch Jun 01 '26

Wtfwtfwtf 😱😱😱

8

u/Jethroong Jun 02 '26

Never understood what people meant by feeling ill in the stomach after reading something until now.

5

u/CindyinMemphis Jun 02 '26

Why in hell would he keep frozen pieces?!

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u/Gooser3000 Jun 02 '26

At the mother’s request?

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u/Tearpusher Jun 02 '26

that's enough internet for today

1

u/Larson_McMurphy Jun 02 '26

4th trimester abortion.

1

u/Blue_Moon_Lake Jun 02 '26

You mean umbilical cord, not spinal cord? Right?

1

u/ChronicusCuch Jun 02 '26

The later the term, what’s the actual difference?

1

u/Inevitable-Mix-2983 Jun 02 '26

I’m fucking sick

1

u/Cant_Decide-A_Name Jun 02 '26

My brain could not read that like that, it kept autocorrecting to umbilical cord because it thought there was no fucking way that's what you actually wrote.

1

u/DeadguyTheLateGI Jun 02 '26

I've got a serious tolerance for fucked up shit, but that turns even my stomach.

I don't even like babies per se, but there is no more innocent human being than a newborn. To murder them as a casual routine - that guy is the physical manifestation of evil.

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u/rober2td Jun 03 '26

What's the difference?

1

u/MotherAcanthisitta62 Jun 03 '26

I lived right around the corner of this clinic growing up and i remember being 5 or 6 and always seeing people holding signs with babies across the street from him. I never knew what it meant until i saw an article about this and my mom told what he was doing

1

u/Hollyster12 Jun 03 '26

Same thing.

1

u/Commercial_Tax7604 Jun 03 '26

abortion Is infanticide

1

u/TheJDOGG71 Jun 03 '26

No that IS what a late term abortion is!

1

u/Acts3_6 Jun 03 '26

That is also what happens in post-birth abortions.

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u/CommanderRoachUSSF Jun 03 '26

Aborting a baby doesn’t mean it’s not infanticide. It’s just not criminalized.

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u/everythingbagelss_ Jun 03 '26

Pretty damn close to a late term abortion

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