Yesterday I celebrated my 26th birthday. Today I drove an hour and a half to see the Gosnell movie in honor of his victims, some of which didn’t even live long enough to celebrate a birthday.

My birthday weekend was filled with lots of fun with friends and family. Truly a great weekend! The company I work for generously gives us an extra paid vacation day for our birthday, so I took the day and drove an hour and a half to see Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer starring Dean Cain. It only opened in select theaters but it was worth the drive. Facebook and National Public Radio both refused to allow paid advertising for the film, and despite ranking in the top 10 grossing films opening weekend there are many theater chains that are dropping the film. In an interview, John Sullivan, the film’s marketing director and one of the film’s producers said “I can tell you from my experience in 15 years of releasing movies independently, we’re in uncharted territories,”. Former Superman actor, Dean Cain, who played the lead investigator in the film remarked that he had never experienced anything like this before. “perhaps it’s a sign of the times,” Cain said.

The film is based on the actual events of the investigation and trial of Philadelphia Abortionist, Dr. Kermit Gosnell. In 2011, Gosnell and several of his employees were charged with eight counts of murder, 24 felony counts of performing illegal abortions past Pennsylvania’s 24-week time limit, and 227 misdemeanor counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. Two years later he was convicted of first degree murder in the deaths of three of the infants and involuntary manslaughter of Karnamaya Mongar. He was additionally convicted of 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. A full transcript of the trial can be viewed online here and here.

After reports of illegally distributed controlled substances, and supposed death of an immigrant women, the DEA, FBI, and Philadelphia Police raided his clinic on 3801 Lancaster Avenue. What they found shocked them.

The following is an excerpt from the Report of the Grand Jury,



The charge and evidence that seemed to convince the jury the most was that of “Baby Boy A”.  This child was born alive and Gosnell remarked that the child was big enough to “walk him to the bus stop”. The child’s neck was snipped with scissors. A nurse took a photo of the child claiming, “He was so big. He looked like he could be somebody’s little brother. I just thought there should be a picture of him. To show the world that he was here for a little while.” Although it was not shown in the film, the picture can be viewed on the film’s website.

Despite many reports of health code violations and unsanitary conditions to the state Department of Health, inspectors said that they were given strict orders not to inspect abortion clinics. Gosnell allowed his untrained employees, some even as young as 15 to administer drugs and anesthesia to his patients in his absence.

The police investigators later searched his house, he calmly sat at his piano and played classical music while they searched. He stated that he had no respect for the laws because he saw them as politically motivated.

Whether you are pro-life or pro-abortion-choice, this film should upset you. The film claims it wasn’t about abortion, it was about bringing justice to the infants born alive and the innocent immigrant woman who was killed. But for me, someone who has been studying abortion and advocating against it for over 8 years, it was about abortion. Even though he was only convicted of cutting the necks of a few children born alive, there were countless other reports of the same thing happening. It may seem like an isolated incident, but this is not uncommon in abortion facilities. I’ve met workers from across the country who have testified to seeing babies born alive and left to die. Planned Parenthood has even gone on record saying that they would not do anything to save the life of the baby if it were born alive.

Another abortionist in the trial testified that the only real difference in what Gosnell did and the millions of abortions done across the country is the fact that the child was outside the womb. Babies, the same age as “Baby Boy A” are killed all the time legally. The only difference is their location.

Although I am glad Gosnell is serving life in prison for a small fraction of the horrible acts he committed, I couldn’t help thinking, what about the thousands of other innocent children that he killed? Where is their justice? What would it be like if all the children violently killed by doctors like him got the same punishment? How amazing and how much of a triumph of justice would that be if they got that? What if we lived in a society that actually cared about and respected human life? What if our culture had as much sympathy for the thousands of innocent children killed every day as much as they cared about saving the endangered animals?

As I the movie ended I looked around the theater and the 380 empty seats around me and shook my head. I walked out of the theater with tears streaming down my face and shaking out of anger. Sadly, most people in the US don’t realize that Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton legalized abortion for all 9 months (up until birth) for any reason. In my experience talking people, most don’t realize that the preborn are living human beings. Most don’t realize that the science is quite clear that the preborn are unique, living, and whole human beings from the moment of conception. And most don’t know who Kermit Gosnell is and what he did. It’s time we let the world know these things. If the media won’t report these things, it’s up to everyday people to educate others on these horrible things done in our country and across the world.