PHILADELPHIA – In an emotional moment in closing arguments by Prosecutor Ed Cameron in the abortion murder case against practitioner Kermit Gosnell, Cameron told the jury it must decide if the longtime abortionist even was “human.”
“Pennsylvania law requires that once a baby leaves the mother, he be treated with dignity and respect like a human being,” Cameron said today. “But the question we need to ask that man sitting over at the table: Are you human? To med these women up and to cut these babies’ necks is not human.”
Cameron emphasized the point by recalling when he had to have his dog put to sleep.
“My dog got better treatment than these babies and these women,” Cameron said. “First they gave him a shot to help him sleep. Then they took him to a room, and once he was asleep, they gave him the shot so that he would not wake up.
“They treated my dog with dignity,” Cameron said. “My dog was cremated. [Gosnell] took these babies and put their parts in Lime-Aid jars.
“Those babies didn’t stand a chance,” Cameron told the jury. “Show courage and tell Dr. Gosnell that what he did was wrong.”
He said the specifics of the charges and the facts in evidence aren’t complicated.
“You decide a case by what happened here. You decide a case based on the law that applies to the case, not based on what happened somewhere else,” he said.
Even the legality of abortion isn’t complicated, he said.
“Outside the mother, all things change. It has to be treated as such. If you hasten the death, that is murder. The commonwealth (Pennsylvania) places a high value on human life,” he said.
He said the basics include state laws regarding human life, a ban on abortion until after a 24-hour waiting period and a ban on abortion after 24 weeks.
He said the evidence shows there were violations.
“Every single one of these is after 24 weeks. And many of these abortions were done on the same day the consent form was signed. They came in, signed the form and were given the abortion medication,” he said.
“This is crucial, because several of our witnesses in the case are bearing the pain of the abortion. They feel guilty because in abortion, there are no do-overs. Once the abortion is done, it’s done.”
Cameron apologized to the court for referring to one baby in question as the toilet baby, the baby former clinic worker Kareema Cross testified she saw moving.
“I saw the baby in the toilet. It moved. It breathed. It had a head as big as a pancake,” Cross testified.
Cameron also summarized other witnesses’ statements.
Defense attorney Jack McMahon said in his closing argument that the abortion industry is not on trial.
“This case is not about abortion. This is not a referendum on abortion,” he said.
However, Priests for Life national director Father Frank Pavone says that’s wrong.
“When we hear the things that are in the grand jury report, that are coming out in the testimony, sadly nothing is shocking us because we’ve heard it all before,” Pavone said. “It’s like a tune that’s been played for decades.
“I’ve been saying that this is not the exception, this (the details of the Gosnell case) is the norm. I wrote a piece for the ‘Philadelphia Inquirer’ that they published recently that shows, and I quoted Peter Singer, the controversial ethicist.” Pavone said. “He said birth cannot be so significant of a moral dividing line. In other words, if you can kill the baby before birth, it’s the same baby after birth.
“So the question Singer said is that there are only two consistent positions. There’s ‘A,’ oppose abortion, or ‘B’ allow infanticide. Now when Roe v. Wade says the unborn is not a person, why can’t you flush it down the toilet? If it’s just medical waste, then like all these abortion clinics, they just throw the babies in the trash,” Pavone said.
“This case is all a logical extension of what we’ve had ever since Roe v. Wade came down,” Pavone said.
Pavone said that the trial also shows that the abortion industry has not fulfilled its promise to make abortion “safe.”
“Those of us who have been looking closely at this for decades, the fact that making abortion legal has not made it safe,” Pavone said. “Roe v. Wade said abortion is legal and it should be performed in ways that maximize the safety of the woman.
“But in fact, the abortion industry has not implemented that part of Roe v. Wade. So we see all kinds of corruption and unregulated facilities. Sadly, this (case) is more of the same,” Pavone said.
“The encouraging part of this is that it’s coming out and the story is being told. And aside from what happens to these two defendants, the bigger question is what is America learning about abortion,” Pavone said. “Has making it legal made it safe? Can it ever be made safe, or are we dealing with a deeper problem in the corruption of those who do abortions?” Pavone said.
As WND reported, McMahon insisted the evidence shows that “not one, not one of those babies were born alive.”
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.
“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?”
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.
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 pointed out 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.”
