Abortionomics
No thanks to the so-called ‘mainstream media’ (a term I have never found my peace with for its ‘New World Order’ paranoia overtones), the world is now aware of the crimes of a Dr Kermit Gosnell, of the beautiful city of Philadelphia, PA. Mr Gosnell is accused of running an operation of such barbaric and contemptuous nature that no words but a fair description of the events would do it justice — and that description is aptly provided by the Grand Jury, who have earned this grisly lawyer’s appreciation and respect for wading through the horror for the sake of justice.
Then again, Gosnell’s is not the first abortion mill that turns out to make Alder Hey look like a case study in human tissue legislation compliance. In truth, that is not the shocking aspect of Mr Gosnell’s crimes, and it is not the dead babies with their spinal cords snipped and the Nepali refugee woman overdosed on pethidine that make the revelations about Gosnell’s practice particularly egregious: the notoriety that l’affaire Gosnell will carry forever stems from the fact that the Grand Jury’s report unearths the hideous economics behind abortion.
Even among opponents of abortion, the picture of abortion doctors is largely that mediated by the pro-abortion media: conscientous, hard-working doctors who are going to work every day under bomb threats and vicious Christians armed with… I don’t know, rosaries or whatever it is vicious Christians carry. I’ve yet to see a horde of vicious pro-lifers with katanas. But I digress. Mr Gosnell knew his part, and played it well: even after the revelation of crimes so heinous, it verges on the absurd — leaving a fifteen-year-old in charge of life and death, using the same tubing for curettage and oxygen, letting unqualified people handle highly dangerous controlled drugs –, Gosnell appeals to his ‘service to the community’, championing healthcare in the underprivileged in the community he was born into. No doubt had this not emerged, he would have been up for some community award or another.
The shocking revelation, then, is not Kermit Gosnell the Monster — the truly shocking revelation is that of Kermit Gosnell the Entrepreneur.
For Mr Gosnell might have been an abhorrent and negligent medic, but his business plan is spot on. In what could be called the pay-as-you-go Ryanair of the abortion industry, Mr Gosnell charged by level of sedation — patients could pay for whatever sedation they could afford, whether clinically appropriate or not. Want to be knocked out with temazepam for a procedure that is normally done under local anaesthetic? That’d be $150. Abortion over 24 weeks? Pay us, and we’ll hold the ultrasound probe a bit askew to show the head smaller — and thus the gestational age lower. Everything is possible in abortionomics. No wonder Mr Gosnell’s ‘other business’ was dispensing, over the course of a mere few years, a staggering amount of drugs — among others, half a million pills of the highly ‘desirable’ painkiller oxycodone and only slightly fewer of the sedative alprazolam. Stacked up, Gosnell’s prescriptions of narcotics would exceed the height of Mt Everest. No doubt each and every single pill of this was clinically warranted and Mr Gosnell received not a single penny of illegal incentives for their prescriptions, for Brutus is an honourable man. In perhaps the most cynical of his efforts to hide his monstrous misdeeds behind a cloak of ‘community service’ carefully designed to appeal the ‘right-thinking’ intellectuals of the age too willing to see a hard-working African-American physician in a tough neighbourhood heckled by white pro-life theocons instead of the stark and disgusting reality, Gosnell has repeatedly pointed out that his service to the impoverished population of West Philly included, among others, a drugs halfway house. Heaven only knows what that place was half-way to, but I can guess being free of drugs it was not.
Abortion is big business. What’s more, it’s big business that, under the cloak of the provision of reproductive services, can be done tax efficiently. Even here in the UK, Marie Stopes has more revenue than Marie Curie Cancer Care — nearly all of it (92.6%) deriving from its ‘charitable activities’, that is, the provision of its services, rather than donations or investment income. As providing abortions and services ancillary thereto qualify as a charitable objective, many abortion providers are organised as tax-efficient NGOs — granted, that is nowhere near the tax-efficiency of a sheer black-market business as Mr Gosnell’s.
It is, then, quite unsurprising that this rather well-funded lobby has immediately leapt to the defence of abortion in face of these vicious attacks on reproductive rights by the inconvenient facts (how dare they!) of the Gosnell case. Indeed while on one hand condemning Mr Gosnell (for which, I suppose, it is fair to give them credit, a basic act of humanity it may be), their contribution to his misdeeds is undeniable. In what is probably one of the more shocking parts of the entire affair, the Philadelphia Department of Health was made aware of Gosnell’s enterprise a number of times. It refused to act because of the policy straitjacket it found itself in after the election of pro-choice Republican Tom Ridge as Governor of Pennsylvania, when, to quote the Grand Jury, “officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.” The language is straight out of the policy documents and press releases carefully drafted by the abortion lobby to persuade lawmakers that even exercising a degree of oversight of abortion facilities on par with that of, say, beauty parlours and massage therapists, would erect barriers to women exercising their constitutional rights to get rid of whatever is growing in their womb as they damn well please. Since, of course, we know that due to those inconvenient regular inspections, no women ever visit beauty parlours and massage therapists.
In a quite astonishing display of chutzpah — “that quality,” to quote the eminent lexicographer of Yiddish Leo Rosten, that is “enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan” –, the abortion lobby has decided that beyond Mr Gosnell, everything is, unsurprisingly, the pro-lifers’ fault. Indeed in the kind of thoughtful and restrained commentary on complex issues that they are known for, Feministing called one of the earliest revelations of the Gosnell affair “anti-choice bullshit”, explaining that it was the very existence of a gestational age restriction on abortion that led to Gosnell. The meme is resurrected to carry on defending the wider-ranging allegations against the abortion business by Ilyse Hogue, President of NARAL Pro-Choice America, arguing that Gosnell’s clinic was a peek into the world before Roe v. Wade. Where this explanation breaks down is the economics of the abortion business. For one, Mr Gosnell was no back-alley abortionist. He advertised his services quite overtly (well, as much as the usual obfuscatory language of ‘reproductive health’ can be regarded to be overt), and nobody was under any illusions as to what he did. The Grand Jury report does not once in its over 200 pages mention that a secret knock on the door or a secret handshake was required to obtain abortion services. You don’t perform up to a thousand abortions per year and make the salary of a Wall Street fat cat by secretly practising illegal abortions. More importantly, however, the argument ignores the facts that led to Gosnell — not illegality, but indeed pro-choice policies were the reasons that kept Gosnell’s operation under the radar. A liberalisation of abortion laws would merely increase the pressure on public health authorities to inspect abortion facilities with eyes wide shut, lest they be accused of ‘anti-choice bullshit’.
In a nation that is consuming itself in a bonfire of envy, what may well come to condemn Mr Gosnell are not his horrific misdeeds, but the profits he made. Mr Gosnell’s annual income, estimated at $1.8m, was over 90 times the meagre $19,765 that a household earned in his impoverished Mantua neighbourhood. He charged between $1,500 to $3,000 for an abortion — between seven to fifteen per cent. of the household income of the women he preyed on. Gosnell was not merely a monster, he was a predator, preying on the poor with impunity while giving preferential treatment to white middle class females from the suburbs. He exploited misery, doubt, uncertainty, fear, anguish and the shock of an unexpected pregnancy. The raw materials of abortionomics aren’t secrecy and illegality — it feeds on vulnerable people, and wherever gestational age limits and other fictitious margins of personhood are set, there will always be desperate, scared, poor, uneducated people for monsters to prey on. This is so whether they operate the kind of vulture business Gosnell did, or seek to profit from one of the more established fronts for the abortion industry.
Perhaps I forgot to mention abortionomics also comes with free legal insurance: despite netting six times the annual average for an OB/GYN six years post-qualification, and on average 3-4 times the annual average for an OB/GYN providing ‘legitimate’ abortion services, as well as owning 17 properties, Mr Gosnell has asked for a public defender (which, thankfully for the sake of whatever little the great State of Pennsylvania has left of its dignity in this matter, was denied). Frankly, I am only surprised the big money in the abortion business hasn’t done a whip-round to hire him one.
April 16, 2013 at 09:33
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Thank you for your kind words valued particularly because I am admirer of
your writing.
.I am aware the cult of victimhood plays a central theme in
your blogs and whilst penning my response it occurred to me that victimhood
might for some be the only way they can establish some measure of self worth
or a value that can be percieved by Society.
Sympathy and empathy are a
poor substitute in my opinion for the inherent respect that is owed to all Why
? Well simply because of sentience or the propensity for it which deserves
respect if anything does
Probably rather later in life than you I came to
understand that those who are unable to give respect to others—- unable to
understand the centrality of freewill to existence —-to their children in
particular —display their own failings in so doing (although too often the
child feels somehow its their fault).Time though almost invariably determines
to some greater or lesser extent the outcome for such parent —something
perhaps of a private hell where their world turns out not to be ‘real’ simply
because it does not exist beyond their ‘Imperial Self’.
A quote you might
find of value is that of George Bernard Shaw ‘The vilest Abortionist is he who
seeks to mould a child’s charachter’. Just the vilest mind !!! For adopting
the concept of respect for the propensity of freewill and sentience in others,
inherent as I see it in the quote, there are a plethora of ‘abortionists’ in
the modern world who know what is ‘right’ for all.
PS Many thanks for not taking exception to my using you as an example to
illustrate my point.I would have understood if you had and would have thought
no less of you for so doing if you had. If there had been the facility to
check with you I would have done so but relied on you to moderate had you
wanted to discard any comment personal to you or otherwise
- April 15, 2013 at 23:31
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Well I hesitate before posting in respect of the point raised about
unwanted children Why? Well I am not so sure talking about ‘unwanted children’
doesn’t elide into abuse of language that Orwell mentions where generalities
are the order of the day to mask specific outcomes —–and yet to speak of
someone specifically being unwanted or not wanted enough by their parents is
almost too personal —too sacred —too painful —-and takes more courage than I
and many others possess.
In any event there are degrees of wanting aren’t there? What is wanted
enough? and by whom? to justify being born. Still Ms Racccoons spell binding
tale of Duncroft and the part her father played in her arriving there opens
the point without I hope opening wounds that have not bravely been shown
Secondly I am far from sure I have adequate ability with words or thought
to make the point I want to try to make and risk thereby weakening what may be
a good argument with poor words.
So what of the unwanted child? For the purposes of this post the child not
wanted by his or her parents? or should that be not adequately wanted by his
or her parents? what level of want is the correct level? Is the child’s fate
to be determined by the parents idea of want —individual want alone? Is that
the correct measure to be adopted? Well a little difficult to argue that
—–since it does logically lead to Infanticide.But what arbitrary age does
Infanticide stop and murder start 2? 8? !0? 16 or 18 perhaps? when the law
says a child becomes sui iuris? Or should the age vary with the liklihood of
outcome ? Yes shes a bad’un –it stands to reason she will become a drug
addict/Prostitute? Stands to reason he or she is unwanted so there is bound to
be a bad outcome —better she doesn’t live. Better for her Better for Society.
Perhaps some sliding scale dictated by some clever algorithm devised by those
same Mathematicians who help the banks compute risk?
Which brings me to specifics. I don’t doubt being not adequately wanted is
one of the hardest obstacles to overcome. Self worth when one is young (sadly
or happily) is determined by those closest to one —ones parents for those who
have them—-if one was from my generation and one was sent to boarding school
that had relevance also —-yes is he one of US ? perhaps an upper middle class
version of the same logic so highly valued in the paen to the petty bougoisie
in Thatcher’s plutocracy —-and from that self worth much good or much bad
might spring to oneself or others. But should the parents assessement of their
‘wants’ definitively determine the outcome for a child? Does concieving and
having a child give a proprietory right? A right as the Romans termed it a
right ‘In Rem’ —a right in the ‘thing’ itself . Are children things? If they
are things then others can surely have rights in them.Who else might have
rights in them? Just parents? who else ? Teachers? Politicians at local or
national level ? The judiciary? what rights? This blog has chewed over
‘rights’ that people have in children in this context —-yes the Andrade case
and Duncroft and what is right or wrong in respect of children.
So how about Ms Raccoon whose Father she recounts didn’t appear to ‘want’
her or didn’t want her enough to take adequate care of her? Perhaps wanted his
version of the perfect child and Ms Raccoon may had not the sort of ‘spirit’
that he though was ‘right’. Should Society back Ms Racccoons father’s
judgement on what the perfect child is? Enshrine it in law? Well possibly not
—-Duncroft was for bright girls and bright girls are valuable and warrant
special schools from the state —-yes but is the only exception to parents who
don’t adequately care for their child are those who are intelligent with an IQ
over 135 or whatever should be cared for by the state?. Is Ms Racccoons blog
which 250.000 follow a result of her being so bright or something else that
she possesses? Well 250,000 people hanging on Ms raccoon’s every word as she
recounts her Duncroft days is the individual outcome —-a better or a worse
measaure of Ms Racccon’s value as her individual worth than her father’s? But
what of things other than intelligence ? more highly prized in present Society
—–the ability to sing or dance ?, to play football? to become an oligarch?
By now you should be bored with questions if you have bothered to read this
far which leads me to my point —-what are the measures to value a life? when
should it be valued? before its been lived ? by whom ?
Oh don’t think I am clever enough (or foolish or arrogant enough) to set
any of these measures coz I know I am not.Others think they know the answers
—–Ms Racccoon’s father was clearly one such person—the Eugenisists have
broader ideas—-Ms Raccoons father was not part of the feckless residuuum from
what she describes but someone with adequate resources to afford the best for
a child. Should it be left it be left to the individual parent? The absolute
right in rem? Do parental resources have relevance and if so to what extent?
Perhaps if people posed the right questions —–all the right questions ——-
rather than providing what they ‘know’ to be the right answers for all then
worthwhile answers might be found —-answers with better outcomes than the
reality of Gosnell.. I suggest the right answers might not have yet been found
and if they haven’t it might be a good idea to find them —-better for the
individual—better for Society which cannot come to terms with present answers
—and unlike Thatcher fans I don’t think being divisive and ramming one answer
down the throats of those who disagree provides good solutions .
I know a fair few women —-individuals not an unspecified generality—– who
have had an abortion —- not part of the feckless residuum of Society—-and all
regret it to some greater or lesser extent—hasn’t ruined their lives totally
but impacted it to some greater or lesser extent adversely. I think they
deserve better answers than are on offer now —its your choice —- your
responsibility —-now go away and don’t trouble us —- is not really good enough
I think —-Does that constitute choice? What when a Roman Catholic Archbishop
in Scotland says if you want to keep the child come and speak to our church
and is pilloried because that is anti choice, confusing or distressing? or the
situation in the first posting about the proposed law in Tasmania? Choice?
—well not in my book —of course its not not compulsory abortion—– but does
that make it choice?
The abortion debate would be fascinating if it didn’t involve an issue that
was so central to existence (its fascinating perhaps because it is)
—-existence of the individual —–but those who seek to regulate others as
Orwell says talk in generalities never the specific —-Smith in !984 was just
an individual —-Orwell uses the device of Smith as everyman —1984 works
because the general is translated into the specific. Its an area where there
could well be many vested interests —economic as has been pointed out —–and
vested interests push their point of view.
Those who might want to try to try to come to grips with the issue might
well research a little history —starting with Darwin of course and that rich
seam of the good and the great —-the Eugenisists —–the father of the movement
being Dalton, Darwin’s relative —yes an Englishman —-trace it through Marie
Stopes who favoured selective breeding under the guise of ‘helping’ the poor
—the academics in America who offered shelter to the children of English
academics in the last war because they had ‘good’ genes that needed to be
‘saved’. Economists such as Keynes who thought eugenics was of the ‘greatest
importance’.
As Orwell said on a different topic he who controls the past (History)
controls the present and he who controls the present controls the future.
Examine the past carefully and accepted answers might just not be as sound as
they seem —-and if you want to see how the general impacts might impact on the
individual look at Dystopian literature —a genre that only came about post
Marx and Darwin —try a short story available on the web by Jerome K Jeromes
(he of three men in a boat fame) —-a clever piece on the nature of those who
know best how to engineer Society —for whom? —well read the essay if you are
interested. Its a short work –it will take less time than a visit to the
Doctor.
- April 16, 2013 at 08:39
- April 15, 2013 at 21:34
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this is what happens when you try speaking up for the dead – your comment
that attracted 1 recco is removed the next day I assume following a nasty
reply from ‘snowcat 3′ who has a history of disagreeing with others ……ANYWAYS
this is what I said in response to the authors reference to ‘savile’s victims’
‘Firstly I want to make it quite clear that I am in no way a defender or
apologist of anyone who has been proved, beyond a reasonable doubt to have
abused or attacked anyone. (The next bit is not actual wording but to along
the lines of) …..the claims made against the late SJS are in dispute and I
would have thought that the author would have mentioned this fact in the
interests of fairness you understand. These awful cases need to be handled
with sensitivity for both sides and changes are needed not BS about ‘we
believe you’ and ‘victims rights’ and so on……
Anyways – I got pulled – it’s
hacked me off ……but ……SOD THEM …..here’s the article
- April 15,
2013 at 19:58
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This is a well-reasoned piece on the current atmosphere at least in the US.
It discusses Gosnell in particular, http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/04/14-theories-for-why-kermit-gosnells-case-didnt-get-more-media-attention/274966/
I personally do not agree with any form of abortion that involves a living
child. I’d like to make that abundantly clear. I am in favor of birth control
being funded by the tax-payer, as opposed to the tax payer having to support
children in care homes, foster homes, etc., and thereafter, unfortunately, in
prisons. Late term abortion is very uncommon, and really what Gosnell did was
not perform abortions, he seems to have committed murder if these children
were living. There’s a difference. A BIG difference. Btw, nobody has pointed
out that his wife, Pearl, is also being charged. My guess is that once the
judge lifts the gag order, the press will begin to weigh in in greater numbers
than thus far.
- April 15, 2013 at 12:16
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Memorable prose and faultless analysis —-the results of liberal social
legislation and free market economics in the (dead) flesh so to speak and
thankfully for once I can see no merit on THEIR side whatsoever.
- April 15,
2013 at 11:52
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“In a nation that is consuming itself in a bonfire of envy, what may
well come to condemn Mr Gosnell are not his horrific misdeeds, but the profits
he made.”
Well, maybe not. When was the last time the left condemned Michael Moore,
or John Kerry, or Al Gore for their wealth or blatent hypocrisy?
Different standards apply to the folks who they see as on ‘their’ side…
- April 15, 2013 at 12:35
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But of course – the liberal left, having espoused Newspeak as their own,
demand total freedom for themselves and their acolytes, but any hint of
dissent is to be ruthlessly eradicated.
Brave New World?
- April 15, 2013 at 12:44
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@ Brave New World? @
They had eliminated procreation via sex in Brave New World. People
enjoyed sex as just pleasure, whilst the babies were manufactured in
nursery factories and most individuals had their foetal stage tweaked so
that they came off the assembly line as Moronic D’s.
There is one question in all this real life angst that strikes me. What
exactly would have happened to these babies if they had been born,
unwanted, unloved and perhaps even resented by the mother bearing them.
There are some things worse than death, especially if you never knew what
life was in the first place. Gosnell will presumably get Life that means
Life.
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April 15, 2013 at 12:52
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@Moor – I’ve sent you some pics of Jimmy’s flat etc in Scarborough –
Sorry all for going off piste !!!!
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April 15, 2013 at 12:55
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@Moor – on piste – ‘great minds’ ‘….’.if they’d been born, unwanted
…..etc’ Exactly, and yes, there are worse things than death …especially
had the deceased not even drawn breath …..!
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April 15, 2013 at 13:51
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Moor Larkin,
Re: “There is one question in all this real life angst that strikes
me. What exactly would have happened to these babies if they had been
born, unwanted, unloved and perhaps even resented by the mother bearing
them. There are some things worse than death”
Very true in many cases, some might have been lucky and some might
have been lucky enough to have been adopted. But you’d imagine the
people going to this clinic would have had to have been pretty
desperate, he sounds like a mad man….
I can’t see the incentive in going to this place as he clearly wasn’t
cheap. Would it be because he was prepared to do an abortion after the
legal time period? Or was it down to good advetising?
- April 15, 2013 at 16:30
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And there you have it. Nobody is talking about this in America at
large, there are worse things going on. Gosnell will receive a very
stiff sentence, but I don’t think anyone outside Philadelphia is aware
of this situation and it’s isolated as it is.
Our system here is overburdened with unwanted children who
unfortunately grow up in foster care or care homes which are maintained
at taxpayer expense, leave at 17 or so and, unless they’ve been
exceptional in school, which most aren’t, they have to get out on the
street and shift for themselves. Most end up on drugs, in prison or
working as prostitutes. I agree with Moor that there isn’t anything much
worse than being unwanted when all you did wrong was to be born at
all.
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April 15, 2013 at 19:14
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Moor, do I interpret what you are saying correctly. That any unborn
child at whatever stage of development that is inconvenient to the
mother should be killed?
- April 15, 2013 at 20:51
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@Cascadian
I would guess I can see the conflicts about the subject but I tend
to the side of the argument that says that the woman/mother has rights
over herself that inevitably override anyone else’s rights. I guess
the moment of being “born” is the moment when she has to relinquish
those ‘body rights’ because the baby is now no longer part of her
body. Medical science has obviously made that moment more and more
muddy, but I don’t think that a woman should end up as a
medically-dictated-to brood mare either. The advent of surrogate
mothers makes this an even more complicated philosophical question. In
a purely personal sense, as a man, I feel I would always give way to
the woman’s wishes and accept her decision in every sense of
“acceptance”.
My interjection was possibly silly because I can see that none of
the blogs on this subject have been intended to debate the principle
of abortion, but rather the way this unpleasant situation has arisen
from the exercise of the best of intentions, as Chris explained in his
text,
“the Philadelphia Department of Health was made aware of Gosnell’s
enterprise a number of times. It refused to act because of the policy
straitjacket it found itself in after the election of pro-choice
Republican Tom Ridge as Governor of Pennsylvania, when, to quote the
Grand Jury, “officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a
barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do
as they pleased”
- April 15, 2013 at 12:41
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April 15, 2013 at 10:06
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Bullseye
- April 15, 2013 at 11:22
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Curettaged.
- April
15, 2013 at 11:50
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“In a quite astonishing display of chutzpah — “that quality,” to
quote the eminent lexicographer of Yiddish Leo Rosten, that is “enshrined
in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the
mercy of the court because he is an orphan” –, the abortion lobby has
decided that beyond Mr Gosnell, everything is, unsurprisingly, the
pro-lifers’ fault.”
/applause
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April 15, 2013 at 09:00
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I have sent this article, in toto, with selected passages highlighted, to
all the Legislators in the tiny Island of Tasmania, with some pointers to
questions they might formulate for themselves.
These mixed bag of folk are considering a Bill that will extend not just
the age of the aborted babies but give unheard of protections to abortionists.
Fines of $65000 and a jail sentence of a year is mooted for anyone who refuses
to give advice that propels a woman to an abortionist.
This article is timely ! And excellent. Many thanks ‘Chris’.
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