PHILADELPHIA – The breathing movements apparently weren't really that. The muscles moving weren't really that either. And just ignore the cries – according to defense counsel for Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, on trial for the murder of a woman and four babies revealed by prosecutors to have been born alive and then killed.
Defense lawyer Jack McMahon spent hours today hammering his points to the jury in closing arguments. The jury could get the case as early as tomorrow.
"These are the facts. This is the evidence that not one, not one of those babies were born alive," McMahon shouted.
He acknowledged abortion is bloody and horrible, but he argued that fact doesn't make his client guilty.
"When you see fetuses with a hole cut in them, that affects you. If it didn’t, something would be wrong with you. But that's what abortion is.
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"Abortion is bloody; it's real. However, you have to decide if Dr. Kermit Gosnell is guilty of murder. You have to remember that he is presumed innocent," McMahon said.
The lawyer emphasized the principle of reasonable doubt, calling it a "powerful concept."
"Reason, mind, if it makes no sense, there is reasonable doubt. The question is, did the evidence push the line beyond the line of reasonable doubt?"
McMahon said the case really isn't about abortion.
"That's not the issue," McMahon said. "The issue is whether or not Dr. Kermit Baron Gosnell is a murderer.
"The presumption of innocence has been stomped on in this case like no other case in the history of American jurisprudence. There has been the most terrible rush to judgment in this case like never before," McMahon said. "That's not right. That's not fair, and the same thing could happen to us all."
He accused the prosecution of twisting information.
"They want to manipulate you. They are guilty of an irresponsible use of power and rhetoric," he said. "Look at what they've done. They brought this chair, this furniture out of storage and put it in here for the court to see. They brought the oldest ones, not the newer ones.
"Then they showed us photos of cats, bloody instruments, and bloody sheets. They didn't show you the clean ones. Why? Because they wanted to manipulate you."
McMahon said the representations in the case of babies crying, breathing or moving were wrong.
"Not one of those babies were born alive. One jerk of an arm does not mean that there is movement," he said.
Prosecution witness Kareema Cross had testified that she saw a baby born alive.
"She delivered and the baby came out big, about 12-16 inches. He came out, and Dr. Gosnell put him in a box, a plastic box. But the baby was so big his arms and legs hung out of the box," Cross said.
"Gosnell took the box from the room. After this, the baby pulled his arms together. Dr. Gosnell took pictures, then he snapped the baby's neck," she said.
She added, "Dr. Gosnell said that this baby was so big he could have walked me to the bus stop."
A grand jury report said that Baby "C" was born while Gosnell was not at the clinic. Witnesses say the child lived for more than 20 minutes after the botched abortion.
The report also said that after Dr. Steve Massof left the clinic, clinic worker Lynda Williams took over the task of slitting the babies' necks after they were born.
Priests for Life National Director Father Frank Pavone was in the courtroom during the closing arguments. He told WND that conditions at Gosnell's clinic isn't an anomaly.
"This trial simply exposes the abortion industry for what it is. Gosnell's clinic isn't unique. I'm afraid it's the norm," Pavone said.
Pavone believes it is abortion itself that is on trial.
"When we hear the things that are coming out of the testimony, nothing is shocking us because we've heard it all before," Pavone said. "The fact that Roe v. Wade made abortion legal did not make it safe. We see all sorts of corruption in unregulated facilities. Sadly this is only more of the same."
Newsbusters noted that the local tax-funded National Public Radio station WHYY described Gosnell as "a physician who had worked in our community for 30 years, cared for women in all of that time."
But the NPR station also noted that the jury "didn't hear from one character witness or one person who was put on the stand to say that he was a competent physician."
Actress Patricia Heaton took to Twitter to give her opinion: "Gosnell is just the less sanitary version of what goes on every day ... the cheapening of human life. Lord have mercy."