What does everyone think?
Abortionist Kermit Gosnell is facing the death penalty if he is convicted of the murders for which he is being tried in Philadelphia. Surely, the heinous acts of which he stands accused are depraved. They probably meet the criteria for capital punishment under Pennsylvania law. However, in the event that Gosnell is convicted, which seems likely, I am asking my fellow pro-lifers around the country to join me in requesting that his life be spared.
Someone might make the case for mercy by pointing out that Gosnell merely carried out the logic of the abortion license that is enshrined and protected in our law. One might note that there is no moral difference between dismembering a child inside the womb (which our jurisprudence, alas, treats as a constitutional liberty) and snipping a child’s neck after he or she has emerged from the womb (potentially a capital offense). How can our legal system impose the death penalty on Gosnell, given the arbitrariness and irrationality of the underlying law?
But that is not the fundamental reason for our asking for Gosnell’s life to be spared…
Read the rest at First Things.
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Julie Culshaw says
I just found this article about Gosnell. If it is true, this man is more than a baby-killer, he really hates women. It tells how Gosnell implanted dangerous intrauterine devices into women that resulted in many complications. This man is a monster. I think in some cases, the death penalty might be merciful because it makes the person face their imminent death and they can choose to show remorse. The fact that one has a known date for their death might actually help them to repent.
http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2013/03/abortionist-kermit-gosnells-mothers-day-massacre/#.UW1mnaCNTIU
Mary D says
I would only support the death penalty if society could not be protected from the offender in any other way. In this case, life in prison is possible and will stop the cruelty committed by this man. Let him live. Where there is life, there is hope of repentance and conversion. He could remain everything he currently is, or, with our compassion he could be the next Bernard Nathanson. There’s no way to know right now, but with the death penalty, we will never know.
Melissa says
I’m opposed to he death penalty on principle, so I’m opposed to it in this case as well. Two main reasons for that–first of all, I think it is a sad society that tries to get rid of its problems by killing them. Secondly, I think it is horrible to ask someone (an executioner) to kill, when there are other ways to render Gosnell incapable of committing any more harm. It is simply not worth it, having his blood on another person’s hands.
But there is something else that I would like to consider, and that is this: in my faith tradition, three criteria need to be met before someone can be held morally culpable for his actions. I don’t think all criteria were met, and therefore I don’t think that he should be held to be completely accountable for his actions. Here are the criteria:
1. The offence needs to be sufficiently serious. (Check. Killing babies is serious business, as is medical malpractice causing death.)
2. You need to have committed the offence of your own free will. Nobody can be holding a gun to your head. (Check. Nobody forced Gosnell to perform these abortions.)
Here’s the problem:
3. You have to have sufficient knowledge and understanding that the act you commit is morally wrong. Gosnell didn’t. When he was first charged with seven counts of first-degree murder (for the babies), and one count of third-degree murder (for the medical malpractice that killed a woman) he quite seriously didn’t understand the charges for the babies. Employees who worked for him (and have pleaded guilty to murder in some sort of plea bargain) have testified that they did not understand that what they were doing was wrong. And really, why not? Nobody told them any differently, and authorities were definitely not paying them any attention.
The states that have the death penalty tend to reserve it for transgressions that are well outside the boundaries of what is legal. But here’s the thing: what Gosnell did certainly crossed the line. But it didn’t cross the line by all that much, not really. Leroy Carhart was a proponent of partial birth abortions–he argued that they should be legal all the way up to the Supreme Court. Twice. He is lionized by avid pro-choicers. And really, what is the essential difference between partial birth abortion and this? A few minutes and a change of location, that’s all. I’ve got to wonder–if the clinic had been a bit cleaner, would this ever have come to light?
The sad truth is that we live in a society where babies are valued as human beings only insofar as they are loved and wanted. Gosnell was simply performing the service of ridding society of the unwanted ones. It is deemed to be a valuable and praiseworthy service in many, many circles. And as much I might wish that we would live in a society where this was well outside the boundaries of what is considered legally and morally acceptable, the reality is that we don’t. Gosnell didn’t push the legal boundaries enough to deserve the death penalty. Should he receive the death penalty for this, it would be scapegoating.
Faye Sonier says
Thanks for these great, thoughtful comments everyone! I’ll redirect PWPL readers back to this thread.
Andrea Mrozek says
My faith tradition says every person has what is right and wrong written in his/her heart. We can choose, minute by minute to do right or wrong. Therefore, I would disagree with Melissa. Some pretty horrific things have been done with the perpetrators shrugging and saying something along the lines of “but this is what we do,” ie, they didn’t think what they were doing was wrong. I think that is no excuse, because at one point they absolutely knew that what they did was wrong, but chose to ignore it, and then chose it so often that they stopped seeing it was wrong in the first place. Every person has the same capacity to go off the rails like this. We all have a part of us that is Gosnell, I’m afraid to say.
Given that this is true, justice demands that people see that there are certain things that are beyond the pale. The law is a teacher, and if we aim, step by step, to create a culture of life, then we ought to agree that this man should have the book thrown at him at very least, and possibly the death penalty too.