Politics conceal "back-alley abortions"

Gosnell building

The murder trial and conviction of Philadelphia abortion clinic doctor Kermit Gosnell, who operated a squalid abortion clinic, let a woman patient die and slaughtered numerous aborted babies born alive, have underscored the fact that abortion politics can serve to conceal--not eradicate--"back alley abortion clinics."

Shockingly, the Grand Jury report from the Gosnell case cites testimony revealing that when Pennsylvania pro-abortion governor Tom Ridge took office, "high-level government officials" decided to discontinue abortion clinic inspections because "there was a concern that if they did routine inspections, that they may find a lot of these facilities didn’t meet [health and safety standards] and then there would be less abortion facilities, less access to women to have an abortion."

In the last three years, 15 states have launched investigations into abortion clinics and providers, citing substandard care and women’s deaths. Yet whenever states move to bring abortion clinics up to the same health and safety standards governing similar surgical clinics, abortion activists vehemently protest that such standards will limit abortion access by forcing abortion clinics to close.

What does that tell you about the health and safety conditions in those clinics?

Even this horrific case may not move the hard-core 13 percent of Americans who still assert unequivocally that abortion is morally acceptable. But it may nudge the perceptions and consciences of many reasonable individuals who, despite their instinctive and haunting discomfort about the injustice and inhumanity of abortion, had been led to believe that allowing abortion at least would prevent "back-alley abortions."