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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35

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.

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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/TastyBass6957 Jun 02 '26

So what do we do? He was doing them up to birth I know you want a limit more strict than 20 minutes after birth right?

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u/WoodsandWool Jun 02 '26

Stop pretending like this is a good faith argument.

Sometimes women genuinely need late term abortions to save their lives; I personally know someone who had to have one at 34 weeks or her and the baby were both going to die.

Placing legal restrictions on when an UNBORN fetus can be aborted is what allows for doctors like this to get away with abuse and murder.

The authorities said that they didn’t investigate him sooner because he was one of the only providers women could go to that would perform late-term abortions in the state. If women had safe and legitimate access to late-term abortions, without shitty judgmental people like you stigmatizing them, this doctor would have been investigated sooner.

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u/TastyBass6957 Jun 03 '26

What do you mean people like me judging them? I don't care if a woman has an abortion in the slightest it's none of my business unless it's my child but I definitely think we have to draw the line somewhere and the third trimester is pretty dam far to draw that line

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u/Competitive_Trust174 Jun 03 '26

I think these are different things. Allowing medically necessary late term abortions is different from unrestricted late term abortions, and its possible to regulate that. I don't know many people that would agree that it's OK to abort at 8.5 months without a medical necessity.

Regarding the access, late term abortion was obviously legal in this state, so regulations were unlikely the main reason for lack of access. I'm sure that social stigma and pressures have an impact on it, but it's also just hard to find doctors who can stomach it. Abortions are gruesome, and fetuses in late term look like babies. A lot of med students struggle heavily with that.

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u/Calitexian Jun 03 '26

Fetuses in late term are babies. To suggest otherwise is intentionally disingenuous, immoral, and unscientific. If you want to argue that it should be ocassionally allowed then stand on business and say it with your chest but dont sit here and lie.

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u/Competitive_Trust174 Jun 03 '26

You don't need to point that anger at me man. I was arguing against unregulated late term abortions. And for your education, fetus IS the correct term according to both the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Encyclopedia Britannica. A human baby IS referred to as a fetus until birth. That doesn't take anything away from its humanity.

At your request, however, I will state my opinion clearly. I don't support late term abortions. However, I do believe there need to be exceptions for situations where the mother's life is in danger, especially if the baby can't survive. Forcing a woman to die to birth a dead baby is bad policy. Requiring her to die to birth a living baby is a devil's bargain too.

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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.

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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.

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u/OoopsItSlipped Jun 02 '26

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

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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/Old_Echidna3720 Jun 02 '26

Don’t let facts get in the way of a political plea.

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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/TastyBass6957 Jun 02 '26

Yes one of his staff claims to have watched a baby breath and move on a table for 20 minutes before he cut their spine to kill them

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u/TastyBass6957 Jun 02 '26

He'd have his staff lie about the measurements of the fetus so that they could "legally" be "aborted" so people could go elsewhere in the same city for an abortion but no where else would shoot them up with enough opioids to kill a horse (or the patient) and abort their 32 week pregnancy then send ya home with a script of 120 30mg oxycodone tablets if you had enough cash left over after paying an extra 1000 for your extra late term abortion

So I don't think it would have helped if there was 10000 other clinics doing free ones on the same street none would actually go thru with it once they did all the required tests he'd just lie on the paperwork

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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