On the passing of Kermit Gosnell

Pennsylvania abortionist Kermit Gosnell died in prison in early March. He was serving a life sentence imposed in 2013 for manslaughter and three counts of murder. May God have mercy on his soul.

The only reason his deeds came to light was that drug enforcement agents raided his abortion facility on suspicion of drugs being illegally dispensed. The agents found things they hadn’t expected: a filthy facility, an ill-trained staff, and the remains of more than 40 human beings. At that time abortion was legal in Pennsylvania up to 24 weeks, and still Gosnell found ways to mock that law.

After he was convicted of manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, who came to his facility for an abortion in 2009 and ended up drugged to death, and after he was convicted of the murders of three children whose necks he snipped after they were born alive despite his attempts to abort them, he had this to say: “I believed my deeds were in a war against discrimination, disenfranchisement, undereducation and poverty.” (That was in correspondence with a reporter during a series of jailhouse interviews in late 2013.)

That was a long time ago. I have no way of knowing if he ever had a change of heart. God knows, and that’s enough.

The grand jury report

The grand jury report that led to Gosnell’s indictment and trial ran to more than 200 pages. It’s worth reading in full. The full text is at https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2015/15-274/15-274-1.pdf.

Let us say right up front that we realize this case will be used by those on both sides of the abortion debate. We ourselves cover a spectrum of personal beliefs about the morality of abortion. For us as a criminal grand jury, however, the case is not about that controversy; it is about disregard of the law and disdain for the lives and health of mothers and infants. We find common ground in exposing what happened here, and in recommending measures to prevent anything like this from ever happening again. (Grand Jury report, page 1)

Once Gosnell’s crimes came to light, there was public revulsion and indignation, for a time. It faded. I’ve sometimes wondered if his snipping of the born-alive babies’ spines simply grossed people out as a matter of poor taste. If the objections to that outrage were based on something stronger, there would be born-alive infant protection statutes in every state. As of 2026, thirteen years after Gosnell’s conviction, that isn’t the case. 

The media and the trial

Gosnell’s 2013 trial was covered by Philadelphia news outlets, as a local crime story. But surely there would be more attention, in view of the nature of the charges…? The court set aside several rows of seats just for reporters.

Result: crickets. Empty seats.

Two journalists were embarrassed enough for their professional brethren to take action. JD Mullane, then a columnist for the Bucks County Courier Times, included in one of his reports a photo of the empty rows of seats set aside for reporters. Kirsten Powers, then a contributor to Fox News, published a nationally-syndicated column decrying the lack of coverage for the trial, noting that there was far more to it than a local-crime angle.

After those two journalists did their jobs, others finally paid attention. Gosnell’s conviction was national news.

JD Mullane is still around, very much a working journalist, and he took note of Gosnell’s death in an understated column posted at phillyburbs.com. 

This post is excerpted from Braided Trails.

If the Gosnell case is new to you, I recommend the 25-minute documentary, 3801 Lancaster, available on YouTube. The book Gosnell: the Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer is worth your time; don’t be put off by its sensationalistic title. I reviewed the book shortly after its publication.

Better together: stories of cooperation

Two recent news stories illustrate how people coming together with peaceful commitment to a common goal can accomplish surprising things. In these cases, the goals involved recreation, and one included a strong element of public safety. One goal was achieved quickly, while the other took several years.

I invite you to head over to Granite State Walker for my report “Better together: non-motorized trail users speak up.”

Consider how the same kind of commitment and cooperation could yield breakthroughs in ministry, service, and life-issue public policy.

seven human hands touching
Image by Bob Dmyt for Pixabay

Open Book: “Pastoral Song”

God’s been good, giving me a beautiful place to live. I’m constantly learning about the stewardship it takes to care for this particular environment, which helps me appreciate how other places are cared for as well. Pastoral Song: a Farmer’s Journey (2021, Mariner Books) is well worth appreciating.

Book cover featuring farm animals near an orchard

From its unsentimental early tone, the book becomes downright poetic as it develops. This nonfiction work is about author James Rebanks’s inheritance of a tradition of family farming. He reflects on the future, learning from the past. He writes of land and the challenge of stewarding it well.

The author grew up on a family farm in northern England, with parents who worked hard and set examples without providing explanations. The author built a closer bond with his grandfather, who farmed nearby land. His grandfather patiently taught him about things the parents had no time to explain, about cultivating the land and caring for the animals that were integral to farming. 

In early adulthood, Rebanks spent time in Australia, and his description of that formative period is a small masterpiece. The contrast between Australia and home brought his parents’ farm into sharper focus for him. He found that he missed it in a way he hadn’t thought possible. He returned to England keenly interested in farming, running smack into changes that were to push his family’s farm into crisis. 

Efficiency had become a watchword in his absence, bringing factory farming with it. “And in place of an old patchwork landscape full of working people, diverse farm animals, and crops, with lots of farmland wildlife, a blander, barer, simpler, denatured, and unpeopled landscape had emerged.” Crop rotation and diversity had given way to efficiencies that only made economic sense in the short term. 

In the face of that shift, Rebanks retained a long-term view that took into account how soils and land would look a generation hence. He writes of his appreciation for the careful, exhausting work that goes into creating and maintaining things like hedges. Such hedges on farmland were among the casualties of “efficiency” until local farmers on small holdings decided to bring them back, which also brought back the birds and wildlife dependent on such plantings.

“…[P]rogress somehow never quite fully happened on my grandfather’s farm in the fells. We held on to that backward little farm and it became – for my father and for me – a counterpoint to the new farming. Unexpectedly, this odd combination of two different kinds of farming changed my family.” Rebanks discovered that long-term thinking affected family relationships as well as land.

Pastoral Song is a thought-provoking guide to a way of life that may be unfamiliar to a reader who relies on farming without realizing it. Without being dry or didactic, Rebanks hands on to the reader his appreciation for the land and the people who work on it, and he writes with an eye to the next generation. “Far from being anachronistic and obsolete, the world’s most ‘backward’ farmers are a vital resource pool for the future.” 

This post is shared to the monthly Open Book linkup hosted at My Scribbler’s Heart and CatholicMom.com.