It’s surprising how little I knew about the Kermit Gosnell case. He was convicted of three counts of murder and probably guilty of more. I know much more than I want to know about Jody Arias and her trial, but heard little about this man who was guilty of a much more gruesome crime.
I’m more of a media defender than a media basher. Hearing the phrase “mainstream media” puts me on the defensive. I’m disgusted by Fox News’ attempt to “balance things” by presenting news skewed to a conservative point of view. But this case is making me rethink a lot of things.
He was a serial killer, in present day America, and his trial went almost unnoticed in the media. Much of the reporting that happened focused on the controversy around the case rather than the case itself.
For reasons of their own, many people involved in major media production didn’t want this case talked about. The man was killing babies. His case provides obvious ammunition to opponents of abortion; those in favor of abortion didn’t want that discussion to happen.
In fact, Time magazine proclaimed that this case wasn’t about abortion. If it wasn’t, it should have been. My hope is that some family somewhere heard the details of this case and realized that what Gosnell did isn’t very different from what abortion doctors do every day. Hopefully they will change their minds about having an abortion, deciding not to kill their child as Gosnell killed those children.
But they may not get the chance to hear the story. Not if some news producers achieve what they hope by not focusing on this murderer.
That’s pretty sad.