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.
Yeah, whenever someone says MSM, I get nervous too.
But I will say that Fox’s willingness to employ “liberal” commentators FAR outstrips their opposition’s willingness to employ “conservatives.” Patrick Mead posted about that a few months ago, that Fox has between 15 and 20 liberal content contributors while MSNBC, et al, have a token conservative on staff but that’s about it.
That doesn’t make me a FOX guy, I hope :)
Tim,
i keep meaning to tell you something but keep forgetting. i’ve come across someone in your town who works on war/peace issues. His name is Philip LeMasters. He teaches at McMurry University. Didn’t know if you’d be interested in networking there or not. Here’s a sample of something he’s written:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/35406792/Dissertation%20Research/Articles/Orthodoxy/St.%20Vladimir%27s%20Theological%20Quarterly/LeMasters%2C%20Philip%20-%20Orthodox%20Perspectives%20on%20Peace%2C%20War%20and%20Violence.pdf
–guy
Tim,
Long ago I got in the habit of listening to various channels for my news. This began of course because of the various cultures I work in (Belgian, Dutch, American). But I quickly learned that using all these various outlets could provide me a better ‘balanced’ view of the news than any one channel could give me. Internet has only made this a bit simpler (since I don’t watch tv and get a good bit of my news from the radio). The ‘right’ had news about Gosnell long before the ‘mainstream’ as well as news about the IRS etc. The ‘left’ puts up a lot more info about healthcare changes. Listening to both gets me thinking and trying to find the real information.
The thing that scares me about Gosnel is that our president voted while he was a state senator to approve that kind of activity. And there are many who agree. If this isn’t as bad as worship of Molock, what would it take?
Tim, you may be interested in a post from Justin Taylor about another story that may be largely ignored by the media at http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justintaylor/2013/05/16/meet-douglas-karpen-the-new-kermit-gosnell/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+between2worlds+%28Between+Two+Worlds%29. The video is very disturbing.
Lots of things that doctors do fly under most people’s radars. For example, U.S. doctors engage in sexual misconduct at a self-reported rate of around 1 in 10. It would be major news if it were determined that 10% of teachers, for example, admitted having sexual contact with students.
Then there is the troubling question of the ethics of doctors who won’t perform abortions being professionally bound to refer women to doctors who will. It’s sort of like saying I won’t kill you wife for you, but here’s the number of a hit man I know. It’s hard to see how doctors can be fellowshipped in the church.
Great post, Tim. Thanks.
There are monsters living among us in all professions, even preachers, and elders in the “church”.
Don’t take me wrong, it would be a rare occasion when I would agree that an abortion would be the right and moral thing to do, but in my opinion there are those times. I won’t go into when and why this is a moral thing in my opinion, I won’t go into detail here but I don’t believe one person should be asked to give their life for the possibility of bringing another life into being. But when we take away the possibility for a mother to be,to make that decision, monsters will rear their ugly head . and yes even monsters get pregnant. There are ways around this kind of decision having to be made, I believe we should all pay for our own choices, but I don’t think we should have to pay for things that are forced upon us. There is no easy way to solve this problem, when you find it within the pages of the bible I would like to see it.