CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- The murder trial of Philadelphia doctor Kermit Gosnell has produced graphic testimony of \u201cbeheadings\u201d of infants who survive abortions, but the lack of national news coverage has drawn protests and criticism from pro-life leaders, congressmen and professional journalists.<\/p>\n\tU.S. Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) took to the House floor on Thursday, decrying what he called a \u201cnational media cover-up\u201d of the trial of Gosnell, who is charged with the first-degree murders of seven infants born alive after a failed abortion.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cTo this day, the national news media remains uninterested, indifferent \u2013 AWOL. Why the censorship? Gosnell\u2019s 'house of horrors' trial fails to attract any serious and meaningful national news reporting,\u201d Smith said April 11.<\/p>\n
\tHe described how the Gosnell trial is rife with \u201cshocking testimony of beheadings, unfathomable abuse, death, and body parts in jars.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tGosnell is charged with seven counts of first degree murder for the deaths of infants who allegedly were killed after surviving abortions at his Philadelphia clinic, the Women\u2019s Medical Society.<\/p>\n
\tThe abortionist also faces a third-degree murder charge for the 2009 death of a Virginia woman who died after his untrained clinic employees administered an overdose of a drug.<\/p>\n
\tAn FBI raid \u2013 which helped uncover the gruesome practices at Gosnell\u2019s clinic \u2013 was conducted in February 2010 and sought evidence of illegal distribution of prescription painkillers.<\/p>\n
\tNine employees have faced state and federal charges for their actions at the clinic. Some have confessed to third-degree murder and using Gosnell\u2019s prescription pads for drugs to be sold on the streets.<\/p>\n
\tGosnell\u2019s trial began March 19 and he could face the death penalty if convicted.<\/p>\n
\tFormer employee Stephen Massof in courtroom testimony in early April said that he saw about 100 babies born alive. He said clinic workers then \u201csnipped\u201d the back of their neck to ensure their \u201cdemise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tMassof, an unlicensed graduate of a Grenada medical school, told jurors the procedure was \u201cliterally a beheading,\u201d NBC 10 Philadelphia reports.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cIt is separating the brain from the body,\u201d he said, adding that women were sometimes given medicine to speed up their deliveries. \u201cIt would rain fetuses,\u201d he said. \u201cFetuses and blood all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tMassof is in prison after he pled guilty to third-degree murder in the deaths of two newborns.<\/p>\n
\tSherry West, a former employee of Gosnell, testified that she heard a child \u201cscreaming\u201d after it was delivered alive at Gosnell\u2019s Philadelphia clinic.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cI can\u2019t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,\u201d she said of the baby, who was about 18 to 24 inches long.<\/p>\n
\tGosnell kept severed feet of unborn babies preserved in specimen jars, allegedly for future identification or DNA samples. One expert testified at the trial that he had never heard of this practice, the Philadelphia Inquirer says.<\/p>\n
\tGosnell\u2019s attorney has said that the movements of the infants were death throes induced by abortion drugs and that the babies had been delivered dead.<\/p>\n
\tLocal news in Pennsylvania and Delaware, where Gosnell also operated a clinic, has covered the trial. However, national coverage has been scarce.<\/p>\n
\tOpinion columns and editorials\u00a0 about the Gosnell trial and its lack of national media coverage have appeared in USA Today and the Investor\u2019s Business Daily.<\/p>\n
\tIn The Atlantic, writer Conor Friedersdorf's essay \u201cWhy Dr. Kermit Gosnell's Trial Should Be a Front-Page Story\u201d characterized the trial as \u201cinsanely newsworthy\u201d but \u201cundercovered\u201d by the news media.<\/p>\n
\tFriedersdorf, who had not heard of the case until April 11, said the Gosnell trial involves even more than the \u201chorrific\u201d allegations that the clinic severed the heads of live babies.<\/p>\n
\tHe said the trial involves testimony to the Pennsylvania grand jury that women were sent to give birth into toilets, that a doctor spread sexually transmitted infections to women through poor sanitary standards, that a 15-year-old administered anesthesia to patients, and that white women received the attention of a doctor while black women were \u201cpawned off on clueless untrained staffers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\u201cAny single one of those things would itself make for a blockbuster news story,\u201d Friedersdorf wrote. \u201cIs it even conceivable that an optometrist who attended to his white patients in a clean office while an intern took care of the black patients in a filthy room wouldn't make national headlines?\u201d<\/p>\n
\tFriedersdorf said the Gosnell trial deserves coverage because it informs the abortion debate and has \u201cnumerous plausible implications for abortion policy\u201d including clinic regulation and oversight and restrictions on late-term abortions.<\/p>\n
\t\u201cMultiple local and state agencies are implicated in an oversight failure that is epic in proportions!\u201d
\n\tFriedersdorf said.<\/p>\n
\tIn a January 2011 Grand Jury report, District Attorney R. Seth Williams found that the Pennsylvania Department of Health had contact with Gosnell\u2019s clinic in 1979, when it first approved it. The department did not conduct another site review until 1989, finding \u201cnumerous violations.\u201d Two site reviews found more violations in 1992 and 1993, but failed to make corrections.<\/p>\n
\tThe report said this \u201cpro forma effort\u201d ended in 1993 when the state health department decided \u201cfor political reasons\u201d to \u201cstop inspecting abortion clinics at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\tThe report blamed the change of administration from Gov. Bob Casey, Sr., a pro-life Democrat, to Gov. Tom Ridge, a pro-abortion rights Republican.<\/p>\n
\n
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