Abortion doctor charged with 7 counts of murder in Philly

[Neil]

I think it's absurd to consider aborting a 24-25 weeker to be murder. Babies delivered at that age are usually very fucked up and end up being a huge burden on parents, medical resources, and the social safety net. You'll find many neonatologists who think it's unethical that we're intervening so early to keep babies alive... but just alive. They generally have an absolutely horrible long term quality of life.

You disgust me.

Your disgust pleases me.
25 week babies who end up costing multiple millions of dollars with no quality of life disgust me. You aren't pro-life. You're pro-vegetable-on-a-ventillator-and-PEG tube feedings.

Quite a bit of difference between aborting a healthy fetus at 24 weeks and making a decision not to expend extraordinary resources keeping preemies alive.

Yeah, but isn't the qualification 'viability'?  Should viability take into account those extraordinary resources?

[Martinus]

Elaborate.

[Neil]

I was under the impression that the rules for abortion were that you couldn't abort something that could survive outside the womb.  But do they take into account heroic medical efforts in that calculation?  And should they?

[Fate]

My position is that we should provide parents with the option of heroic measures, but only when the fetus has reached a point where those measures will give the patient a good quality of life. When you're in the 25 week range we can keep the collection of cells alive. We can't stop it from bleeding into it's brain and developing cerebral palsy / mental retardation, bowel problems, severe respiratory problems, sepsis, etc. Which the vast majority of fetuses at that point end up doing.

[Barrister]

My position is that we should provide parents with the option of heroic measures, but only when the fetus has reached a point where those measures will give the patient a good quality of life. When you're in the 25 week range we can keep the collection of cells alive. We can't stop it from bleeding into it's brain and developing cerebral palsy / mental retardation, bowel problems, severe respiratory problems, sepsis, etc. Which the vast majority of fetuses at that point end up doing.

"good quality of life" is an incredibly slippery slope.

[Fate]

My position is that we should provide parents with the option of heroic measures, but only when the fetus has reached a point where those measures will give the patient a good quality of life. When you're in the 25 week range we can keep the collection of cells alive. We can't stop it from bleeding into it's brain and developing cerebral palsy / mental retardation, bowel problems, severe respiratory problems, sepsis, etc. Which the vast majority of fetuses at that point end up doing.

"good quality of life" is an incredibly slippery slope.

We're on the bleeding edge of science's capacity. Everything's going to be a slippery slope. I don't see how you avoid that. Right now the situation in the US is that of course these parents seek treatment because it's offered by the neonatologist. There are many in those circles who think the extraordinary care should be withheld until the pregnancy reaches a point where an intervention to keep it alive does more good than harm. It's unethical to offer help to those parents when the price of that help is so immense. But most parents will never turn it down.

[Neil]

My position is that we should provide parents with the option of heroic measures, but only when the fetus has reached a point where those measures will give the patient a good quality of life. When you're in the 25 week range we can keep the collection of cells alive. We can't stop it from bleeding into it's brain and developing cerebral palsy / mental retardation, bowel problems, severe respiratory problems, sepsis, etc. Which the vast majority of fetuses at that point end up doing.

"good quality of life" is an incredibly slippery slope.

Which is why doctors should be held to the highest ethical standards.

[OttoVonBismarck]

@Ide, what law school did you go to again? Pro-choice arguments, at least legally, aren't based on personhood versus not personhood. That might be the ethical argument, but the legal argument has always been that prior to fetal viability the State cannot violate the woman's right to privacy in acquiring medical treatment. At viability the State has a compelling interest in the life of the fetus to regulate abortion in various ways.

In Roe v. Wade viability was considered synonymous with third trimester, but in Casey the court clarified that viability was viability, whatever it might happen to be.

Further, I don't know of any jurisprudence that would apply to the United States where an diminished privileges of a person would result in them not being protected from various harms. Yes, one minute old babies cannot vote, live on their own, sign contracts, own property etc--but it's pretty much always been murder to kill them, assault to attack them etc.  Murder isn't a crime based on how valuable the life of the victim is.

1)You may not have read Roe in a while--Blackmun's opinion mentions it a fair amount, and the money quote there is something along the lines that fetuses aren't people in the full sense, something like that.  But you are correct about Casey--it is not discussed in Casey because that's not what Casey is about.  I doubt it was mentioned in Ayotte.  It's kind of alluded to in the pointless sections of Carhart that sit uneasily aside the legal analysis.  There are other USSC cases where maybe it's mentioned, maybe it's not, and zillions of lower court cases where I suspect it has been discussed, but I am not writing a law review article...

2)...nor was I discussing the legal precedents which have established the privacy rights and balance of interests that determine when it is constitutionally impermissible to prohibit an abortion.  I was, as you say, discussing the ethics of ending a life from a physical point of view.  Outside of a wacky moral system like Jainism or similar, the level of personhood (for lack of a better term) is the test by which killing crosses from a neutral to bad act.  That said, the legal basis for abortion is informed by such ethics: if a fetus could talk in the womb, I find it highly unlikely we would permit its destruction, regardless of the coverage of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the woman carrying it.

Viability is an inane way to test personhood, from that point of view, since it largely tests ability to breathe and keep a heart beating, none of which are sufficient indicators of personhood, as there are many viable organisms which we do not attribute personhood to.  But it is administratively convenient and serves as a stark legal boundary, and the potentialist argument holds significantly greater weight with a viable fetus, and these are not unimportant things.

Keep on topic white trash. This is what you said:

I'll start with the position that I don't think infanticide is a good thing.  However, if you accept the pro-choice arguments about personhood, I think logically you have to accept that it is very unclear whether late-term fetuses or even babies are people in the full sense of the word.  Since obviously most people feel that killing a nine month old fetus at delivery is really terrible, and I'm not exactly cool with it myself, I'm fine with that being criminalized, since in most cases the mother has had all the chances in the world to abort at an earlier, less contestible time.  My point is solely that bright line rules like 24 weeks, or birth, or a month after birth, are administratively and legally convenient, but violations thereof are unlikely to be malum in se in every case, and never to the same same degree that, say, killing a thinking, speaking, remembering--clearly fully human--two year old is.

The point is the jurisprudence on abortion never made the argument about personhood, because that's basically an impossible standard to apply realistically. That's why the focus was on right to privacy (it's irrelevant where and when personhood may have been mentioned in the text of Roe, the actual ruling was that the State couldn't violate a woman's right to privacy to protect a non-viable fetus but it could to protect a viable fetus--viable defined as third trimester in Roe but that was modified by Casey.)

A nine month old fetus that has been delivered is a human infant, it is not a fetus. Note that this spiel of yours was in response to me saying, "we're talking about actually delivered babies here." That's not even "killing a fetus at delivery" as basically happens with partial-birth abortions, but actually delivering a fetus--thus making it a human under the law of basically all civilized countries in the world. Our laws have always recognized delivered fetuses as humans for the purposes of homicide laws (murder/manslaughter etc.) Some States punish the killing of a fetus equivalently to murder (in cases where a murderer kills the mother or something and the fetus dies, or where an assault on the mother kills the fetus etc), but that's a separate issue. The core issue is dude had babies actually get delivered and killed them. That's murder, period.

Your dissembling is stupid and ignorant, just like you are. It's never mattered how smart or individual or whatever a living human is, killing them is a crime. I can't go brain a retard just because I feel like it. Your idea that somehow the mother dying should be considered any different in terms of "heinousness" of a delivered baby dying is reprehensible. Both are humans, once the fetus is delivered it is no longer really arguably whether or not we consider it a human for purposes of homicide laws.

[Queequeg]

 

[Ideologue]

I wasn't writing a legal brief, but only explaining my view of ethics, which is why I didn't cite case law, only alluded to laws that exist or have existed and told you whether I thought they had a solid ethical foundation, and that foundation is not perfect, which you even agree with.  For some reason you do cite case law.  It's a free country, I guess.

Oh, but since you want to actually make this a legal history argument.

Personhood is by no means irrelevant in Roe, because the extent of personhood of the fetus determined whether the Court would accept the states' arguments that 1)the Fourteenth Amendment applied to the fetus and 2)the states' interest was sufficiently compelling to substantially impair a fundamental right.  Like I said, pal, read it again--or maybe for the first time--and maybe until you do, shut the fuck up about what it does and doesn't say, OK?

The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, [p157] for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment. The appellant conceded as much on reargument. [n51] On the other hand, the appellee conceded on reargument [n52] that no case could be cited that holds that a fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Constitution does not define "person" in so many words. Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment contains three references to "person." The first, in defining "citizens," speaks of "persons born or naturalized in the United States." The word also appears both in the Due Process Clause and in the Equal Protection Clause. "Person" is used in other places in the Constitution: in the listing of qualifications for Representatives and Senators, Art. I, § 2, cl. 2, and § 3, cl. 3; in the Apportionment Clause, Art. I, § 2, cl. 3; [n53] in the Migration and Importation provision, Art. I, § 9, cl. 1; in the Emolument Clause, Art. I, § 9, cl. 8; in the Electors provisions, Art. II, § 1, cl. 2, and the superseded cl. 3; in the provision outlining qualifications for the office of President, Art. II, § 1, cl. 5; in the Extradition provisions, Art. IV, § 2, cl. 2, and the superseded Fugitive Slave Clause 3; and in the Fifth, Twelfth, and Twenty-second Amendments, as well as in §§ 2 and 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. But in nearly all these instances, the use of the word is such that it has application only post-natally. None indicates, with any assurance, that it has any possible pre-natal application. [n54] [p158]

All this, together with our observation, supra, that, throughout the major portion of the 19th century, prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn. [n55] This is in accord with the results reached in those few cases where the issue has been squarely presented. McGarvey v. Magee-Womens Hospital, 340 F.Supp. 751 (WD Pa.1972); Byrn v. New York City Health & Hospitals Corp., 31 N.Y.2d 194, 286 N.E.2d 887 (1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-434; Abele v. Markle, 351 F.Supp. 224 (Conn.1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-730. Cf. Cheaney v. State, ___ Ind. at ___, 285 N.E.2d at 270; Montana v. Rogers, 278 F.2d 68, 72 (CA7 1960), aff'd sub nom. Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308 (1961); Keeler v. Superior Court, 2 Cal.3d 619, 470 P.2d 617 (1970); State v. Dickinson, 28 [p159] Ohio St.2d 65, 275 N.E.2d 599 (1971). Indeed, our decision in United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62 (1971), inferentially is to the same effect, for we there would not have indulged in statutory interpretation favorable to abortion in specified circumstances if the necessary consequence was the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.

This conclusion, however, does not of itself fully answer the contentions raised by Texas, and we pass on to other considerations.

...

Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer. [p160]

...

In areas other than criminal abortion, the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as we recognize it, begins before live birth, or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth. For example, the traditional rule of tort law denied recovery for prenatal injuries even though the child was born alive. [n63] That rule has been changed in almost every jurisdiction. In most States, recovery is said to be permitted only if the fetus was viable, or at least quick, when the injuries were sustained, though few [p162] courts have squarely so held. [n64] In a recent development, generally opposed by the commentators, some States permit the parents of a stillborn child to maintain an action for wrongful death because of prenatal injuries. [n65] Such an action, however, would appear to be one to vindicate the parents' interest and is thus consistent with the view that the fetus, at most, represents only the potentiality of life. Similarly, unborn children have been recognized as acquiring rights or interests by way of inheritance or other devolution of property, and have been represented by guardians ad litem. [n66] Perfection of the interests involved, again, has generally been contingent upon live birth. In short, the unborn have never been recognized in the law as persons in the whole sense.

Otto sez: Lol Wade was the baby right?

[The Brain]

Just a few more edits plz.

[CountDeMoney]

Judge drops 3 murder charges against doctor Kermit Gosnell

It took the prosecution five weeks to present their case against West Philly abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell and it took defense attorney Jack McMahon a couple of hours to knock a big hole through a critical part of their argument.

Three first-degree murder charges were dropped against Gosnell after McMahon argued that "there is not one piece...of objective, scientific evidence that anyone was born alive" at Gosnell's clinic.

Prosecutors have argued that the babies were viable and that Gosnell and his staff cut them in the back of the neck to kill them.

Gosnell was originally charged with eight counts of murder. Seven first-degree murder charges are for accusations that he killed seven newborns. The third-degree murder charge is for the 2009 death of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old Bhutanese refugee prosecutors say received lethal doses of sedatives and painkillers at the clinic while awaiting an abortion.

He also is charged with violating Pennsylvania abortion law by performing abortions after 24 weeks, operating a corrupt organization and other crimes. Gosnell was originally charged with seven counts of first degree murder.

Gosnell, 72, still faces five remaining murder charges and the possibility of the death penalty if convicted of any of the first-degree cases.

Judge Jeffery Minehart has not explained the reasoning behind today's rulling.

Former staffer Eileen O'Neill is also on trial. The 56-year-old Phoenixville woman is charged with practicing medicine without a license, and taking part in a corrupt organization. Six of the nine theft by deception charges she faced were dropped today as well because the prosecution didn't present any witnesses to support those charges.

The investigation into Gosnell's clinic began in February 2010 with agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI who were conducting two raids on Gosnell's clinic in search of drug violations. Instead, they stumbled upon "deplorable and unsanitary" conditions, including blood on the floor and parts of aborted fetuses in jars. State regulators followed up with their own investigation, shutting down the Women's Medical Society clinic at 3801 Lancaster Avenue in West Philadelphia and suspended Gosnell'slicense.

The case then went to a grand jury. Their nearly 300-page grand jury report released in January 2011 described Gosnell's clinic as a filthy, foul-smelling "house of horrors" that was overlooked by regulators.

Prosecutors said Gosnell made millions of dollars over three decades performing thousands of dangerous abortions, many of them illegal late-term procedures. The clinic had no trained nurses or medical staff other than Gosnell, a family physician not certified in obstetrics or gynecology, yet authorities say many administered anesthesia, painkillers and labor-inducing drugs.

The grand jury report stated furniture and blankets in Gosnell's clinic were stained with blood, instruments were not properly sterilized and disposable medical supplies were used repeatedly.

Bags, jars and bottles holding aborted fetuses were scattered throughout the building, which reeked of cat urine because of the animals allowed to roam freely.

State regulators ignored complaints about Gosnell and the 46 lawsuits filed against him and made just five annual inspections since the clinic opened in 1979, investigators said. Several state employees were fired and two agencies overhauled their regulations after the allegations.

Gosnell has always maintained his innocence. He pleaded not guilty and has remained held without bail since his arrest. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty in the infant deaths.

Prosecutors estimated Gosnell ended hundreds of pregnancies by inducing labor and cutting the babies' spinal cords and caused scores of women to suffer infections and permanent internal injuries, but they said they couldn't prosecute more cases because he destroyed files.

Eight clinic workers including Gosnell's wife, a beautician accused of helping him perform illegal third-term abortions, have pleaded guilty to a variety of crimes. Three of Gosnell's staffers, including an unlicensed medical school graduate and a woman with a sixth-grade education, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder for their roles in the woman's overdose death or for cutting babies in the back of the neck to ensure their demise.

In an interview with the Philadelphia Daily News after the clinic was raided, Gosnell described himself as someone who wanted to serve the poor and minorities in the neighborhood where he grew up and raised his six children, who include a doctor and a college professor.

McMahon, disputes that any babies were born alive. He has suggested that the woman who died, Karnamaya Mongar, had undisclosed respiratory problems that could have caused fatal complications.

McMahon has accused officials of "a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution" and "a prosecutorial lynching" of his client, who is black, and of applying "Mayo Clinic" standards to Gosnell's inner-city, cash-only clinic. He said Gosnell performed as many as 1,000 abortions per year, and at least 16,000 over his long career, with a lower-than-average complication rate.

After about a week of jury selection, seven woman and five men were chosen along with six alternate jurors. The trial began March 18 and is expected to last about two months.

Gosnell's former employees have testified that they were just doing what their boss trained them to do and described long, chaotic days performing gruesome work for little more than minimum wage paid under the table. An assistant testified she snipped the spines of at least 10 babies at Gosnell's direction, sobbing as she recalled taking a cellphone photograph of one baby she thought could have survived, given his size and pinkish color.

Mongar's 24-year-old daughter testified about the labor-inducing drugs and painkillers her mother was given as she waited hours for Gosnell to arrive for the procedure. She said her mother was later taken to a hospital, only after firefighters struggled to cut bolts off a side door of the clinic, but she died the next day.

Prosecutors wrapped up their five-week case with a former worker at Gosnell's clinic who testified that she saw more than 10 babies breathing before they were killed. The defense was slated to begin presenting its case Monday but Gosnell's attorney told the judge he was sick and went to a hospital for tests.

[Kleves]

McMahon has accused officials of "a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution" and "a prosecutorial lynching" of his client, who is black, and of applying "Mayo Clinic" standards to Gosnell's inner-city, cash-only clinic.

"If black women wanted a standard of care above the nightmarish, they should have been born white, you goddamn racists."

[Scipio]

McMahon has accused officials of "a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution" and "a prosecutorial lynching" of his client, who is black, and of applying "Mayo Clinic" standards to Gosnell's inner-city, cash-only clinic.

"If black women wanted a standard of care above the nightmarish, they should have been born white, you goddamn racists."

You want to know what I blame this on the breakdown of?  Society!

[Admiral Yi]

Fucking elitist honkey swine.