Making a Movie About Kermit Gosnell: Confronting Evil by Exposing It
Jim DeMint /
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, right, gets escorted to a van leaving the Criminal Justice Center after getting convicted on three counts of first degree murder on Monday, May 13, 2013, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo: Yong Kim/Philadelphia Inquirer/MCT)
The most prolific serial killer in American history didn’t wear a clown suit, put on a mask, or send cryptic letters to newspapers. Instead, he opened an office, put on a lab coat, and let his victims come to him.
For decades, Kermit Gosnell killed children in a fetid “house of horrors” abortion clinic in Philadelphia. He delivered his “services” in unimaginably filthy conditions, routinely involving illegal late-term procedures, and grievously injuring some women while causing the death of at least one mother. On many occasions, according to testimony by Gosnell’s poorly trained staff, when babies were born alive, he would use scissors to snip their spines. One clinic worker estimated nearly 100 living babies were gruesomely murdered moments after birth.
Sometimes, he kept their feet as trophies.
When these atrocities finally came to the fore in 2011, so did the abject failure of the medical establishment and government agencies to prevent them from occurring. Those with an incentive to look the other way did.
Gosnell’s sensational trial, which held implications for public policy, was ignored for weeks by traditional media outlets , until public outcry and new media sources browbeat the mainstream into doing their job. Several journalists admitted to specifically avoiding the story because it didn’t fit with their ideological priorities. Some just dismissed it, unbelievably, as a local crime story.
Of course, we know the reason why Kermit Gosnell’s crimes are a distinctly touchy subject for the national media: They are identical in principle, if not in method, to the thousands of legal abortions that take place in America every day. In the end, it’s all about ignoring the reality that an unborn child is a human being with dignity and the right to life. If more and more people recognized that truth and realized the horrors of the abortion industry’s darker corners, then the media gatekeepers might find themselves on the wrong side of an angry country.
This is just what needs to happen. There are things in this world that are sickening but must be confronted and exposed.
Fortunately, Irish filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney have stepped up to make a crime movie detailing not only the depth and breadth of Gosnell’s crimes, but the failure of mainstream news sources to provide proper coverage and of government agencies to intervene from the beginning.
Needless to say, this isn’t the sort of movie anyone in Hollywood cares to fund, so they’re relying on regular folks who want to spread the message to lend a hand.
After a bumbling attempt by Kickstarter to censor the project, the filmmakers moved it to Indiegogo, where it has become one of the largest crowd-funded independent films in history. They have two weeks left to meet their $2.1 million fundraising goal.
I encourage you to join me in supporting this important crime movie, and I hope that millions of Americans can bring themselves to watch it upon its release.
We cannot fight evil in this world without staring it in the face. And we will not be victorious until we protect the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for every human—born and yet to be.