For weeks, jurors in Philadelphia heard grim testimony about deaths and squalor at Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s inner-city abortion clinic. While they listened, the murder case reverberated far beyond the courtroom, changing the tone of the national debate on abortion.
Groups supporting legal access to abortion, after major successes in the 2012 national elections, find themselves on the defensive as they try to distance themselves from Gosnell.
“All of us are appalled by the substandard illegal practices,” said Vicki Saporta, who as CEO of the National Abortion Federation represents hundreds of U.S. abortion clinics. “But to make the leap to say that’s indicative of the state of abortion care throughout the U.S. is absolutely false.”
Anti-abortion activists, by contrast, are energized by the case, citing it in fundraising appeals and renewed efforts to expand state restrictions on abortion.
“It’s very seldom we get such an opportunity to look at the realities of what’s happening in abortion,” said Dr. Donna Harrison, president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
Gosnell, 72, is charged with killing five people — a patient and four viable babies that prosecutors say were born alive. Among scores of other counts, he also is accused of performing abortions after Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit.
Jury deliberations began April 30 and are scheduled to resume Monday.
Anti-abortion groups have seized on the case as a chance to reach an audience beyond their regular followers. Those efforts were enhanced midway through the trial when abortion opponents used social media to accuse major national news outlets of a “blackout” on the trial. The result has been increased news coverage.
The horrific allegations against Gosnell — whose clinic was licensed but hadn’t been inspected since 1993 — have prompted the abortion-rights lobby to repudiate him as a “rogue operator” employing practices far outside the norm.
“This was an incredibly horrible situation and when it came to light, he was somehow associated with the abortion community, which he’s not,” said Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute, a research group which supports abortion rights.
Anti-abortion groups challenge that assertion, arguing that lax regulation and callous attitudes have allowed dangerous conditions to persist in many clinics.
They also contend there’s little practical difference between what Gosnell is charged with — killing four babies who were born alive — and late-term abortion.
One anti-abortion group, Americans United for Life, is using the case to bolster its promotion of state laws requiring abortion clinics to meet the same safety standards as outpatient surgical facilities.
“You are going to see legislators taking a look at this horrific situation in Philadelphia and say, ‘We do not want this in our state,’ ” said spokeswoman Kristi Hamrick.
Anti-abortion activists were already feeling emboldened by the Republican electoral gains of 2010. Since then, Republican-dominated state legislatures have passed more than 160 restrictive abortion measures — more than in the seven previous years combined, according to a tally by the Guttmacher Institute.
In the 2012 election, abortion-rights supporters countered by accusing Republicans of waging a “war on women,” and some anti-abortion Republicans lost high-profile Senate races.
Now the Gosnell case is providing abortion opponents with fresh ammunition. For example, they are citing the case in urging Congress to ban abortions in Washington, D.C., beyond the 20th week of pregnancy, based on the disputed premise that a fetus can feel pain at that age.
Late-term abortions are relatively rare. According to federal data, about 92 percent of abortions are performed at 13 weeks of pregnancy or earlier.
Some states are now targeting those early-stage abortions, as well. New laws would ban most abortions after 12 weeks in Arkansas and after six weeks in North Dakota.
In Pennsylvania, the Gosnell case has already had a direct impact on policy. A law that took effect last year raised safety standards for abortion clinics, including requirements for wider hallways and doorways, bigger operating rooms, and full-time nurses. The law also mandates unannounced inspections.
Since the law’s enactment, five of the state’s 22 abortion clinics have closed, according to the Health Department.
Abortion-rights supporters say the Gosnell case illustrates the need for increased access to abortion services, not less. They argue that restrictions drive down the number of reputable providers and force desperate, low-income women to turn to unsafe options, as was often the case before the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision established a nationwide right to abortion.
“The kinds of restrictions that the anti-choice lobby has been trying to put in place for years and years are the exact kinds of restrictions that keep people like Kermit Gosnell in business,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.
“There are always going to be bad actors in any profession,” said Dr. Anne Davis, medical director for Physicians for Reproductive Health. “The harder it gets to access abortion, the wider the door for bad actors.”
It’s too soon to gauge whether the Gosnell case will sway public opinion and alter abortion politics over the long term. National polls continue to show most American support legal access to abortion.
President Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights, waded into the debate on April 26, becoming the first sitting president to make an in-person address to Planned Parenthood. Obama vowed to help fight against state abortion restrictions that he said are designed to “turn back the clock to policies more suited to the 1950s than the 21st century.”
The president did not mention the Gosnell case, but he attacked legislators in North Dakota, Mississippi and elsewhere who want to “ban or severely limit access to a woman’s right to choose.”
But Claremont McKenna College professor Jon Shields, an expert in abortion policy, described the U.S. abortion system overall as “unusually permissive” compared to most Western countries.
“Most of the industry is self-regulated and generally that works pretty well,” he said, crediting such groups as Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation with high standards.
“But then you get a lot of clinics that … are interested in cutting costs,” Shields added. “We know a lot less about these clinics.”
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