WHY NO NEWS COVERAGE? ISN'T THE MURDER$ OF BABIES WORTHY OF REPORT?

Submitted by: Nancy Battle

KERMIT GOSNELL’S HOUSE OF SCREAMS

By: John Hayward  
4/8/2013 05:03 PM

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The mainstream media has been studiously avoiding the trial of abortion butcher Kermit Gosnell, despite the kind of stomach-churning testimony that would normally attract headline coverage.  The latest, from Delaware Online:

A Delaware woman who worked for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell recalled hearing one child “screaming” after it was delivered alive during an abortion procedure at Gosnell’s West Philadelphia clinic.

Sherry West, of Bear, said she was loyal to Gosnell – who is now facing multiple counts of murder for allegedly killing children after they were delivered alive at his clinic – but said the incident “really freaked me out.”

When Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore pressed the 53-year-old West for specifics about the incident, West struggled to answer, clearly uncomfortable with the memory.

“I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” West testified, telling a judge and Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury that the body of the child was about 18 to 24 inches long and was one of the largest babies she had seen delivered during abortion procedures at Gosnell’s clinic.

West said she saw the child, whose face and features were not yet completely formed, lying on a glass tray on a shelf and she told a co-worker to call Gosnell about it and fled the room.

West herself is facing up to 100 years in prison, having admitted to third-degree murder, and testified as part of a plea deal.  She offered a chilling look at how Gosnell ran his little shop of horrors:

While West had some medical training during her 20 years with the VA, she testified that she received no formal training on conducting ultrasounds or administering drugs, which was part of her job at Gosnell’s clinic. Instead West said she was trained by other clinic staffers including a 16-year-old who worked there.

On the stand, West detailed the lax procedures at Gosnell’s clinic, including an incident on the night in 2009 when 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar died following an abortion there. Prosecutors charge Mongar died due to an overdose of pain medication administered by Gosnell’s staff.

West said it was “hectic” and recalled how it took time for paramedics to get into the building because the back door was padlocked and no one had the key.

Prosecutor Pescatore also walked her through the incomplete and conflicting medical records from Gosnell’s clinic where it is not clear what drugs were administered, by who and when. She testified that at least one notation by Gosnell – that Mongar was feeling no pain afterward – was completely wrong.

To put it mildly, Gosnell and his people did not conduct themselves as if they were dealing with precious human lives.  They weren’t terribly overwhelmed by the humanity of their pregnant clients, either.  Inhumanity is contagious.

Gosnell hired West – who had been his patient for 20 years and suffered from both nervous breakdowns and Hepatitis C – at a time when she was desperate for money, and initially paid her under the table, according to her testimony.  That tracks with the testimony of another co-defendant, Steven Massof, also hired on by Gosnell at a moment of personal vulnerability and employed under dubious conditions, as reported by LifeNews:

Gosnell offered Massof a “residency” in 2003, but failed to tell him that it was not a sanctioned program. Massoff was never licensed to practice medicine.

Massof received no pay at all for his first two weeks of work for Gosnell, who seemed to seek out those in desperate circumstances for employment, then exploit them by extracting maximum work for minimal pay. Massof testified he received a salary of only $200-$300 per week.

For the first couple of months of his employment, Massof shadowed Gosnell in his family practice in order to learn from Gosnell’s experience.  After that, he began seeing the family practice patients without supervision.  After Gosnell gave Massof a signed prescription pad, Massof remarked, “I got alot more patients coming to me.”

Massof testified that he had an interest in abortion and a curiosity about it.  To become more involved in the abortion part of Gosnell’s business, Massof began “helping move patients around” from one area of the clinic to the next.  Later he began doing first trimester procedures and eventually took on the “second tris,” testifying that he saw over 100 babies born alive who had their necks snipped in what he said was “literally a beheading. It is separating the brain from the body.”

During busy times, when the women were given drugs to induce contractions all at once, Massof told the court that “it would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place.”

“I felt like a firemen in hell. I couldn’t put out all the fires,” he said.

The people testifying in this trial keep dropping sound bites that would command headlines in any other context, but there’s virtually no Big Media coverage of the story, and certainly no attempt to build a narrative around the obvious questions of “How did this happen?” and “Is this happening anywhere else?”  The normal media search for “lessons” from a shocking incident seems to have been put on indefinite hold.  Will their interest finally be aroused by the chilling detail of a baby screaming out loud during an abortion procedure?

 Breaking News: Media Halts Coverage of Serial Killer

It has all the makings of a riveting courtroom drama: The man on trial is charged with killing seven children and a young mother in a filthy, blood-splattered building near Philadelphia. Over the course of several years, he preyed on his victims as a "doctor" who relied on staff of teenagers posing as licensed anesthetists. Together, they stashed the bodies in the basement freezer, until authorities raided the office and arrested the man known to many as a "human butcher."

Normally, the media would be tripping over themselves to report every grisly detail of this "house of horrors"--unless, of course, the accused is an abortion doctor named Kermit Gosnell and his victims were the babies born alive in his filthy clinic. As the gruesome testimonies spill out of former employees in Gosnell's real-life trial, the bright lights of the network cameras are nowhere to be found. And the keyboards of reporters, who race to recount the nightmarish details of every other tragedy, have fallen silent.

It's not because the story lacks jaw-dropping revelations. This week, two of Gosnell's staffers described the monster they worked for and the evil that penetrated every inch of his Women's Medical Center. Sherry West, who had been with the office for years, told the court about a screaming baby that had been born in the clinic and then murdered. With tears streaming down her face, West said the tortured cries of the child "really freaked me out... I can't describe it." She says that she called the aborted babies "specimens" because "it was easier to deal with mentally." Then, trying to collect herself, she told prosecutors, "I'm trying to block a lot of this out."

Earlier in the investigation, Steven Massof, who was also hired by Gosnell despite his lack of medical training, sent shivers down people's spines when he described the busy times: "It would rain fetuses. Fetuses and blood all over the place." In those moments, Massof confessed, "I felt like a fireman in hell. I couldn't put out all the fires."

Babies born alive in abortion clinics? According to Massof, it's more common than you might think. He estimated that at least 100 babies were born alive in this single clinic who had their necks snipped in what he described as "literally a beheading." "These killings became so routine," an employee admitted, "that no one could put an exact number on them. They were considered 'standard procedure.'"

And what has become standard procedure for the major networks is to ignore the gut-wrenching story. Maybe they're afraid more Americans will make the connection between Gosnell's barbarism and Planned Parenthood's public support for procedures just like it. Last week, a representative of the abortion giant lobbied the Florida state house to stop doctors from helping born-alive babies. Like Gosnell, Cecile Richards's group believes that only "wanted" children have rights.

In a letter to Planned Parenthood, which enjoys a half-billion taxpayer dollars for its extremism each year, Rep. Marsha Blackburn rebuked the President's closest ally for "publicly argu[ing] that the rights of American citizens are not even bestowed upon at birth, but rather at an arbitrary time that benefits your abortion agenda." Americans didn't hear about Rep. Blackburn's letter--for the same reasons that we aren't hearing the testimony of a nation that has hardened its heart to the cry of the innocent. The media clearly doesn't want the country to see the culture they have helped create.

If the networks won't tell these victims' stories, we will. FRC, along with Media Research Center, and 18 other conservative leaders have released a letter calling on the networks to stop censoring their coverage of the Gosnell trial. As even Marc Thiessen argues on the editorial page of the Washington Post, "Our country is deeply divided over the question of abortion. But can we not all at least agree that killing a born child is murder - not a question that 'should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician?'"