20 Mar 2013 Lawyer Criticized for Playing “Race Card” in Gruesome First-Degree Murder Trial of Abortion Doctor
Race is Not the Issue, Says Project 21 Black Conservative Network
Washington, D.C. – Members of the Project 21 black leadership network are criticizing the lawyer of an abortion doctor for playing the “race card” to defend his client against gruesome charges that the doctor, who is black, murdered a patient and born-alive babies during abortion procedures.
“Are there no depths to which those employing the race card won’t sink? Even when attempting to defend against the brutality of infanticide, race has unfortunately become an issue,” said Project 21 Derryck Green. “That Dr. Gosnell’s defense attorney would say that the charges against his client are ‘an elitist, racist prosecution’ and that his client is a victim of ‘a prosecutorial lynching’ is worthy of the antics of Johnnie Cochran.”
“This is legalized abortion in America,” said Project 21 member Stacy Washington. “And the knowledge of it puts to shame the cries of leftists who proclaim the dangers of back-alley abortions done with coat hangers if Roe v. Wade is overturned. Women are dying with Roe.”
Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been charged with seven counts of first-degree murder and other charges related to the deaths of a woman and seven babies in a rogue West Philadelphia abortion clinic he operated. The woman was allegedly given a lethal dose of anesthesia and the babies were reportedly killed after being delivered during the abortion process. It is alleged that Gosnell broke Pennsylvania law by performing late-term abortions and abortions within a 24-hour waiting period. It also has been alleged that Gosnell’s medical staff consisted of unlicensed medical school graduates, a high school student and an anesthetist who was a sixth grade dropout with rudimentary reading and writing skills.
At his trial, which just began and could last several weeks, Gosnell’s defense attorney, Jack McMahon, argued that the case against Gosnell “is a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution of a doctor who’s done nothing but give [back] to the poor and the people of West Philadelphia… It’s a prosecutorial lynching…”
Prosecutors, who estimate Dr. Gosnell performed around 1,000 abortions each year (approximately six abortions were being performed at the time the FBI raided the clinic), have already provided testimony from former employees who said they used scissors to sever the spines of some babies during the abortion process. Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore told jurors: “The standard practice here was to slay babies. That’s what they did.”
“The saddest part about this case — besides the obvious scope of the horrors described — is the unknown number of clinics like this one operating in the United States without any oversight,” added Project 21’s Washington. “It’s the highest form of naïveté to assume that this is the only place where women are treated worse than animals, enduring pain and suffering and some paying with their lives for the apparent privilege of aborting a baby.”
McMahon, however, argued that prosecutors are imposing “Mayo Clinic” standards of safety and professionalism on Gosnell’s inner-city practice.
“The not-so-subtle irony of the claim that Gosnell is a victim of racism is that many of the real victims of the predatory practice alleged of Gosnell were themselves poor, black women by whom Dr. Gosnell allegedly made a fortune,” noted Project 21’s Green. “This despicable attempt to play the race card shows exactly how some people use race to manipulate others into forfeiting common sense by not holding everyone to the same standards of acceptable, societal behavior. The race of a person should be of no consequence when they are on trial for capital murder. Gosnell should be treated exactly as if it were a white, Hispanic, Asian or any other race of doctor accused of breaking the law.”
Eight others arrested in connection with Gosnell’s clinic have already pleaded guilty, including three to third-degree murder.
“I pray that the jury’s moral fabric is intact and that they see through the charade that the race card has wrought our culture,” said Project 21’s Green.
Project 21’s Washington added: “Is infanticide legal in America? Because this so-called doctor was delivering babies alive and then killing them with scissors! That cannot be a form of legalized abortion in America.”
Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives for over two decades, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (https://nationalcenter.org).
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