So why didn't the Kermit Gosnell trial get more media coverage?

I just heard about this, and I live in the DC area. Frankly, I think it was because it went on and on for years and years, and the departments charged with inspections had not inspected his facility for years. Which to my mind makes them somewhat culpable for him continuing to be able to practice.

More babies have been killed by abortion since 1973 than the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust, true story.

Media cares about what the public cares about, they do it for ratings. Obviously they think no one cares any longer or they’d have had it all over all media outlets.

Just a note on the lack of coverage from the main stream media. This is definetly an outlyer with no connection to legitimate abortion clinics. The liberal press however, does not want to have to explain that. Additionally, it is hard to read the details of this clinic and still look at a fetus as just a clob of cells. Or what many have termed them as a parasite. An aborted fetus, a baby, crying on a lab shelf of discard specimens can not be a glob of cells. It’s a baby! The liberal press would much rather have this whole mess, just go away. So they don’t want it in headlines.

@KNOWITALL Or… no babies are killed by abortion. This question will be derailed fast if it turns into a debate about when a foetus becomes a baby. How about we not take it there?

@glacial Feel free NOT to take it there, I didn’t.

There were some people that thought Jews weren’t real ‘people’ either. Now I did.

It’d be hard to cover properly without it being a bit too gruesome. It’s also highly controvercial, and controversy doesn’t gain a wide spectrum of viewers/readers.

There is also the very real fact of agenda. TV producers and newspaper editors are not stupid, even if they do try to tend toward neutralism. It would be very hard to get people to truly think that these fetuses are not babies, in this circumstance. (Not that many people won’t act like they don’t think they are!) So if it’s not okay to kill these “things” that are obviously children in this manner, when is it okay to “terminate” them “humanely”?
I think that it brings up questions in the minds of viewers and reporters alike, that we’d all rather not face.

[Another tad of personal opinion added here that’s not relevant to the question at hand- consider yourself warned.
http://www.lifenews.com/2013/04/15/are-late-term-abortions-any-better-than-what-kermit-gosnell-did/

I believe that I recall a witness in the 3801 Lancaster video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7YmrsY4KSY) saying that sometimes the babies did not die immediately when the spinal cord was snipped. I truly cannot understand why this is any worse than dismembering the fetus piece by piece inside the womb so that the pieces are small enough to be sucked out. The dismembered feet that people keep bringing up as so terrible, are nothing uncommon at all in legal late-term abortions. In fact, I personally know someone who had the job of delivering the arms and legs of aborted fetuses from the abortion clinic to somewhere else in the hospital (can’t recall where) for use. Nothing uncommon about feet in jars people.

Now please realize that I do understand that the sanitation and care of the mother were completely unacceptable, and definitely inferior to well regulated clinics. But as for the “fetus”, I cannot see how Gosnell’s actions were so much more horrifying.
Ok, I am done with my little rant now.]

@glacial this story is totally about “live births” turned into “abortions” by the simple fact of deliberate murder and not talking much about it afterward. In fact, if the only difference between these murders – at least to the extent that I’ve read about them – is the relative positioning of the head and feet during the delivery process, then a lot of what is commonly thought of as “routine abortions” (or more accurately “not-thought of”, because we just don’t want to confront it) is also cold-blooded and deliberate murder.

I can’t imagine why that hasn’t been a story – a major story of serial murder on a grand scale – from coast to coast since the start of the trial.

I’m sure that it’s a decision driven completely by politics.

@CWOTUS The question is about whether the media would choose to cover or not cover a story on a man who was doing late term abortions, and some of whose patients died. It doesn’t matter whether his actions were right or wrong for the purposes of the question. The question is, would the media avoid the story for any of a number of reasons. One of those reasons could be that its readers believe that late term abortion is murder, or further, that its readers believe that all abortion is murder. But the question of whether or not abortion is actually murder is irrelevant to the question being asked.

Here are some possible answers to this question:
1. The media covered up the story because its readers think abortion is murder
2. The media covered up the story because it doesn’t think abortion is murder, and it didn’t want to offend liberals
3. The media covered up the story because it doesn’t think abortion is murder, and it wanted to change the beliefs of its readers

There is a huge range of such answers, but not one of them is going to be

The media covered up the story because abortion is murder

or

The media covered up the story because abortion is not murder

The right or wrong of abortion is not the point. What the media believes is the point, and what it perceives as the consequences of covering the story is the point. So we can ignore the question of whether abortion is right or wrong completely for the purposes of this question.

Wow! Godwin’s Law by the second post! Must be a new record.

@Rarebear My statements are true and I didn’t mention Hitler specifically or the Nazi regime.

@Rarebear Yup.

@KNOWITALL You are correct, my mistake. The Holocaust has nothing to do with Hitler or the Nazi regime.

@Rarebear Why kill either of them?

@KNOWITALL Please look up and read very carefully the term “straw man argument”.

@Rarebear That’s not a strawman to anyone who believes that abortions kills a person.
They are incredibly similar situations, unless abortion does not kill someone/something with a right to life.

To you it is a straw man, but to @KNOWITALL and to me it is not. This is a matter of worldview, rather than logical fallacy. If you could prove to me that an unborn child has less right to life than a child outside of the womb, your arguments would hold weight. Until then, they are meaningless because we are looking at the world through different glasses. It’s useless trying to tell people what to see, without giving them the glasses through which to see it.

Because the murder of 20 white children is way worse.

When I first heard this story on Morning Joe yesterday, I was plain shocked that I had not heard it before. The entire thing is so horrific I am stunned that there has not been more coverage. I listen to NPR at least an hour or two every single day, I watch news channels and local and national news daily, yet yesterday was the first I heard of it. I really have no idea why it received so little coverage. There are no easy answers to that question.

@genjgal since the unborn child cannot survive without the life of the mother flowing through it, it is a strawman argument and a logical fallacy. There is no worldview around that can make a 12 week old fetus survive without the mother giving it life. The glasses @Rarebear, and most pro-choice advocates are wearing use logic, medicine, and reality to look at the situation. Most pro-life advocates are wearing glasses of emotion and – whether they like to admit it or not – most pro-lifers are coming from a place of wanting to control women.

@Rarebear No argument makes late-term abortions okay. It’s interesting that this Q is about abortion, I comment on abortion and answer the Q and you start nitpicking. The fact is that late-term abortions are inhumane.

I’ve heard that some people in Boston died and limbs were ripped off of about ten people and it’s sad, BUT imagine that with babies at 8 months old that DO feel pain. No wonder the news wasn’t reported, wouldn’t want any federal funding cut off if people had to face the reality of what their tax dollars pay for.

@genjgal
The logical fallacy is that this multi-murder case is not about abortion in the sense that any normal person would understand it.

I bet any person, including all the ones pro-choice, will condemn the actions of this horror-doctor.

Painting a picture that suggests that being pro-choice means being on the side of this creep is at best very distasteful. (And being done above.)

@whitenoise here, here, great point. No one, be they pro-life or pro-choice, could possibly find justification for what Dr. Gosnell did.

@KNOWITALL
Who are you talking to?

Are you suggesting anybody is in favor of these late abortions?

Are you suggesting these are government funded?

Are you suggesting there is a conspiracy?

Wake up… no conspiracy… just other news overshadowing.

Now one media picked it up… it is everywhere. That’s the way news works.

If the facts in this case don’t make us question a lot of our bland assumptions about abortion in general and late-term abortion in particular, @whitenoise, then this society is a lot sicker than I had imagined.

That is, many of the so-called doctor’s so-called abortions were live births that were then terminated. Okay, that’s prima facie murder, and obviously most of us will agree that is a crime for certain. But if the only difference between these “abortions” and others in which the “doctor” adjusts the fetus to present in breach, feet first, so that the decapitation / severing of the spinal cord can occur while the head is still in the womb – and if that’s “okay” and “legal”, then we have some serious problems with this procedure.

Until now I’ve been generally accepting of abortion: it’s not my body, etc., and I’ve bought into that; I’ve not been part of “the abortion debate”. I certainly agree that women should have an absolute right to terminate a pregnancy early, by which I mean “within a month or two of conception”. But if we don’t rethink our attitudes to these types of abortions, then we are seriously whack.

@whitenoise I was defending my anti-abortion statements to to @Rarebear, thanks.

As far as your questions, I think you’re out of line, no one mentioned a conspiracy except you.
Obviously some people are in favor of late-term abortions since they still occur.

@CWOTUS makes a great point.

@KNOWITALL
You are on a public forum. If you talk nonsense to one person, another may react.

Now talking about ‘out of line’...

You may not have mentioned the word conspiracy, but you were definitely implying one:
No wonder the news wasn’t reported, wouldn’t want any federal funding cut off if people had to face the reality of what their tax dollars pay for.

However, since you didn’t mention a conspiracy explicitly, I asked you about it. If you don’t think the media attention is blocked by a conspiracy of pro-lifers to keep their funding, then why do you even mention it?

If you or anyone want to discuss the ethics of legal abortion, then do that. But not under the false pretense of discussing media coverage on this criminals actions.

You threw in Hitler and Nazis in the first post you placed in this thread. Effectively killing any opportunity to discuss the topic at any depth. You hijacked a valid question (on media coverage of a heinous criminal) and turned it into a discussion on abortion.

@CWOTUS

If you are saying that the legal window for abortion should be shortened, I might agree. It is a different topic, though.

@whitenoise React all you want, and I’ll still feel free to tell you when I think you’re out of line.

I didn’t throw in Hitler and Nazi’s, I simply mentioned a fact about abortion in a way that most people can fathom, based on their knowledge of the numbers of people killed in the Holocaust. You took it from there instead of PM’ing me your concerns, that’s on you.

This kind of juvenile back-and-forth is why people leave fluther, it’s incredibly rude to continue to badger other posters because they don’t believe the same things you do.

On whitenoise.com or whatever site you run, you can make it all about what YOU believe, until then, I’ll say what needs said whenever I choose.

@whitenoise Thank you. This is exactly what I’ve been saying. This question is not about the pros/cons of abortion, at all.

It does help, if you @KNOWITALL

I know you all don’t want to talk about abortion in general but a story such as this will have an impact on attitudes about abortion. Pro-choice advocates don’t want any restrictions as they believe it will open the door to banning abortions. Unfortunately a case such as this brings the late term abortion into question. These are obviously viable babies. The media isn’t trying to give this guy cover but it is trying to sweep the whole mess under the rug. There’s no question that it puts late term abortions in a very bad light. A slippery slope the media doesn’t want to go down.

@KNOWITALL “I didn’t throw in Hitler and Nazi’s,”
Yes you did.

@Rarebear Why don’t you PM me and let’s clear the air like adults so we’re not disturbing the other posters with this disagreement.

@KNOWITALL No, I will not PM you. This is a public forum. You made a public statement and I’m publicly calling you on it. You mentioned Jews being killed in the Holocaust in your second post. Only a fool wouldn’t associate that with Nazism and Hitler. To imply that Jews being killed in the Holocaust is NOT associated with Nazism and Hitler is beyond the pale. Own up to what you wrote.

@Rarebear Okay, that’s fine. I stated a fact and that is all, and I am often asked to present facts in discourse here on fluther.

Here’s another one: The sky is blue. If you take that to be dissing God because God makes the sky , how is that my problem exactly? I have no control over your brain.

My grandfather helped liberate concentration camp victims and it’s something very dear to our family, so don’t judge me, I was not using that fact flippantly in any way.

I tire of idiocy quickly, so feel free to reply and let’s be done with this.

Well, the sky is blue because of Rayleigh Scattering, not because God wants it to be blue.
Are you seriously calling me an idiot? Really? First you use straw men arguments, and now you resort to ad hominem attacks?

@Rarebear Are you seriously thinking that I in any way would insult the Jewish people? You truly don’t know anything about Christianity if you think that’s the case with me.

It may surprise you, but Christians get pissed off, too, and I certainly never said I was a perfect one. You’ve posted at least five times here and I still have no idea what is wrong with presenting a fact. Tell me the real problem so I can address it, that is what communication is.

@KNOWITALL You are utterly missing my point. You were comparing abortions to the Holocaust. I said that it was an application of Godwin’s law. You said, that it wasn’t Godwin’s law because you didn’t mention Nazis or Hitler. I said that of course it’s an application of Godwin’s law because only a fool wouldn’t associate the Holocaust with Nazis or Hitler.

That’s what we’re talking about here. I’m not sure what conversation you think we’re having, but that’s the one I’m having with you.

I disagree. Point taken though, I can see your side, although that doesn’t explain the apparent anger/ emotion.

Like all men, you just want to hear ‘You’re right dear’ correct?! :)

@KNOWITALL Jesus was a man. Did He only want to hear “you’re right dear”?

Not a very graceful (or Christian) way to concede an argument.

@SuperMouse Do you see the smile. It was a joke. I bet Jesus joked sometimes, too.

If anyone else wants to chew my arse today for nonsense, get in back of the line – lol

Yes @SuperMouse the smile made it all okay.

@Rarebear Oh you’ll respond to someone else when this whole public conversation was YOUR idea instead of PM’ing. Classy.

@KNOWITALL I responded to you plenty. Relax.

@Rarebear Okay.

@whitenoise I do not know of anyone who is on the side of Gosnell in this terrible crime.

What I was saying was that legal late-term abortions (and even mid-term abortions) are not quite as different as people would think, when it comes to the treatment of the infant.

Well, since by writing that, you are addressing another argument than one that supports the topic of the thread, I see that as a straw man argument.

it may help if you would lead in such remarks with:
“While talking about this, I want to mention something related, but different:”

That way, it would be clear that you are not addressing the topic through an argumentation that superficially seems to be on topic but in reality isn’t.

If you want to discuss legal abortion and whether that is a good thing or not, that topic deserves its own thread. Now it has just derailed this one.

@whitenoise I agree. It is not the argument at hand.

Interesting read

What Auggie said.

Now all, please go read the article that Augie posted. ^^

Very interesting read. Dr. Tiller’s story was tragic.