Bingo. We draw the line at fetal viability because after that point, a fetus can be delivered (technically, induced pre-term labor would still be abortion, as the pregnancy is being aborted before the woman’s body or fetus triggers the ‘normal’ end-cycle) live and allowed to continue to live. Once the fetus is out of the formerly-pregnant woman, the issue of bodily autonomy is resolved and the pregnancy is terminated. If the fetus is (possibly) viable at that point, it should not be euthanized, as euthanasia is illegal.

Is this satire?

1) Once a fetus has been delivered, abortion is no longer relevant. An abortion refers to the termination of a pregnancy. With a delivered newborn, there is no longer a pregnancy. The pregnancy has already been terminated. You cannot abort a neonate. It is, by definition, impossible.

2) Fetal pain? Seriously? We’ve just had this discussion all over the atheosphere, thanks to Dawkins’ ignorance. There is mounting evidence that there is no such thing, not until delivery because “the fetus never experiences a state of true wakefulness in utero and is kept, by the presence of its chemical environment, in a continuous sleep-like unconsciousness or sedation.” Source. To suggest severing a neonate’s spinal cord is kinder than a “crazy painful abortion in the womb” is like claiming removing a kidney on a conscious patient is preferable to doing a “crazy painful organ harvest” under general anaesthesia.

3) The right to abortion is one of bodily autonomy. Once a neonate is delivered, that right ceases to exist. The morality–and legality–of severing a neonate’s spinal cord is in a completely different arena from terminating a pregnancy. This may be a question of euthanasia, but has nothing to do with abortion.

If Gosnell did as claimed, then he killed viable, independent neonates after inducing preterm delivery. Condemning those actions has nothing to do with condemning abortion or “Freudian defense mechanisms”.

Kate, no one was comparing it to bumps and bruises. Stop extending the analogy. They never said they were completely analogous. Even an abortion inside the womb can’t be compared to bumps and bruises in a hospital.

So, are you one of those people that feel better when you can’t see their spinal cord or something? I guess he should’ve stuffed the babies back in her vagina. And were the mothers passed out or what? I keep seeing people blame only the doctor for the ‘murders’. Even people who aren’t present for murders they helped plan get part of the blame in court. Unfortunately, the women in question died fucked up deaths trying to get abortions. But if that’s what some people think, I’m surprised that people claiming they were murder even care about the women who died? Where’s the “Hurdur, she deserved to die! Disgusting!” people?

Well, I guess I’m glad they haven’t showed up.

Hmm, dunno if they were cut out so that he could perform pain free abortions or what. Are you arguing that when the baby comes out, it shouldn’t be aborted? I taste a bit of Freud like defense mechanism. Anyway it sure beats crazy painful abortions in the womb.

I completely agree, I don’t know how graphics will get anyone. Unless you’re talking about painful abortions… then I completely disagree. Sorry, but that’s sadistic at worst, cold at best. Whether it’s a fetus of a puppy or a rat in there or the fetus of a baby or even the fetus of a blob that is going through torturous pain, I don’t approve of torturing things, and I can’t just “so what” that. C-section, sever spine… no need to be lazy, doctors.

You’re using the race card? *facepalm* I seriously doubt there is a significant or notable amount of people who don’t give a crap about the deaths because they’re not white. This is as silly as the arguments about Amanda Todd’s suicide. “They only care because she’s white!” I don’t appreciate such random guesses like this -ever-. And yeah, it’s random. There is no observable reason to think that. It only shows the race-oriented thinking of the card puller.

Be fair, this account is a lot kinder to Gosnell than any other I have read, and despite criticising the grand jury report for manipulative language (not unusual in a murder trial), it engages in quite a bit of that itself. For starters, the notion that the ‘proper vernacular’ should be one which hides the details comes over like special pleading, and the crimes of Gosnell are minimised eg

he was arguably negligent with the way he prescribed drugs

This refers to his killing a woman by repeated injections of out of date and unsafe anaesthetics

no doctor, no matter how much good they intend, should be recklessly endangering lives.

Implies that he was trying to do good rather than profit from his crimes

It’s difficult to argue that the abortions Gosnell performed were not wrong, because there were clearly so many things he did that were wrong.

But even if they had been performed in a medically competent way, they would still have been illegal since the majority of those late-term aborted babies were healthy and could have survived outside of the womb.

This piece is not well written, if the point is that people who support abortion should condemn this man’s (unrepresentative) crimes while upholding the right to abortions performed legally then it does a bad job of arguing it.