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The anticipated movie about abortionist and convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell delivers a suspenseful detective story that ultimately peels away the sugar coating of the left-wing establishment and political media claim that abortion is “women’s health care.”

 Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer – which opens October 12 through GVN Releasing – indicts many more than the man who snipped the spinal cords of babies born alive during abortions.

Filmmakers Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer reveal the full story of the Philadelphia abortionist who was considered a “pillar of his community” and an “advocate for women’s ‘reproductive health.’” The establishment media’s embrace of the narrative that abortion is “women’s health care” kept Gosnell out of the news – even as he stood on trial in 2013.

The film is based on the grand jury report that accused the Philadelphia-area abortionist of killing hundreds of babies born alive in his “house of horrors” clinic over several decades. Kermit Gosnell is now serving a life sentence for the murder of three infants and for the involuntary manslaughter of a woman who died following a botched abortion. Additionally, Gosnell was found guilty on most of the more than 200 counts of violations against Pennsylvania’s informed consent law.

The movie follows along with the grand jury report’s opening paragraph:

This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.

Even after the release of the grand jury report, media ignored the case of Gosnell for fear of being viewed as antagonistic to a “woman’s right to choose.”

“This case is not about abortion,” is heard emphasized many times throughout the film.

Except that some people came to realize it was about abortion, and that abortion actually snuffs out life, and that women can be endangered by it, especially when politicians, government bureaucrats, judges, and journalists turn the other way in order to be viewed in the “correct” political light.

Dean Cain plays James “Woody” Wood, the intense and somewhat impulsive Catholic police detective who thought he was on a routine drug investigation in Gosnell’s clinic. What he finds instead is horrifying, and, despite warnings against accusing community hero Gosnell – who is willing to do abortions past the legal gestational age to help “poor black women” – Woody can’t let it go.

Ultimately, he ends up convincing the district attorney’s office to take up the case. Sarah Jane Morris plays the role of Assistant District Attorney Lexi McGuire, a mother of five – including a new baby. Politically, she has presented herself as “pro-choice,” but she comes to represent those who experience a conversion of sorts when she is faced with what is happening in Gosnell’s clinic.

After Woody shows her the video of the aborted baby feet in jars in the clinic, Lexi is seen poignantly standing over her own baby, playfully taking his little feet in her hands, as she pauses and ponders.

Lexi ultimately brings the case to the grand jury and eventually to trial.

Thinking that the trial will bring out massive numbers of reporters because of its subject of abortion, the district attorneys and the detectives are stunned when the courtroom is bare. Cyrina Fiallo portrays “citizen journalist” Molly Mullaney, who finally calls attention to the case by tweeting out the now-famous image of the empty courtroom in which the “serial killer’s” case is being tried.

As the trial progresses, Gosnell – played by Earl Billings – fully expects to be vindicated because of what he views as the heroic service he is performing for poor women.

Billings captures the abortionist’s devious, eerie smile and his total detachment from the destruction he causes.

Though the filmmakers do not depict actual images of Gosnell snipping babies’ spines, they skillfully convey the action to their audience through haunting scenes. In one such scene, Gosnell’s young staff members hear a baby cry and find the abortionist standing over a woman during the procedure as he grabs his scissors. In another scene, viewers witness only the emotional expressions of members of the jury who are asked to look at a photo of a baby born alive in Gosnell’s clinic, whose neck has been “snipped.”

Images of the filth in the clinic where women are treated are contrasted during another scene in which Gosnell smashes clams he has purchased to feed his precious, endangered pet turtles he keeps in tanks also in the clinic.

The narrative that abortion must be protected as “women’s health care” is again called into question when a state Department of Health (DOH) nurse is clearly peeved that local police detectives and the FBI are traipsing through Gosnell’s abortion clinic. At one point, the nurse warns the men against disturbing Gosnell’s abortion patients, when she clearly is unconcerned about the filth, blood, and cat excrement at every turn.

When the DOH nurse is before the grand jury, she is asked about why her department has not inspected Gosnell’s clinic.

“We had instructions directly from Gov. Ridge’s [Republican Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge] office not to inspect abortion clinics,” she responds.

Gosnell is directed by actor Nick Searcy, who also delivers a powerful performance as Michael Cohan, Gosnell’s defense attorney.

In one courtroom scene, Searcy’s character masterfully cross-examines a well-dressed, white, female abortionist – a witness for the state – who supposedly runs a successful facility and is there to point out how abortion is done right.

However, using the visual aids of the tools of her trade – long needle to inject the unborn baby with the digoxin or potassium chloride that will stop his or her heart, and large forceps to break off the baby’s arms and legs before evacuation from the womb – Cohan ultimately makes the point that all abortion is ugly, no matter who is doing it and how clean the clinic. Gosnell is doing it for the poor women is the defense’s claim. What could be wrong with that?

Abortion rights zealots will likely choose to see Gosnell as another effort to reduce access to abortion on demand. What they will miss through that very narrow lens is that the price paid for abortion on demand – and for its use as a major political bargaining chip – is the destruction of the lives of many infants and their mothers. After viewers see Gosnell, it may be difficult to once again believe the claim abortion is “health care.”

BY: Charles Fain Lehman Follow
@CharlesFLehman

October 4, 2018 12:55 pm

The Senate voted 98-1 on Wednesday to advance a bill aimed at curbing the drug crisis, sending it to President Donald Trump for a likely signature in the near future.

The SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act is the final version of several different proposals which have passed back and forth between the House and Senate in recent months. It passed the House back in June by a vote of 396 to 14.

The bill’s primary Senate co-sponsor, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), on Wednesday touted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R., Ky.) claim that the bill represented “landmark” legislation.

“Last year, more Tennesseans died from opioid overdoses than were killed in car crashes,” Alexander said. “The opioid crisis is hurting Tennessee communities, and I’m proud that Congress has come together to take this big step to help our communities fight back.”

Opioid overdose death—and drug overdose death more generally—is currently America’s greatest public health crisis. Some 70,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2017. At least 42,000 of these deaths involved opioids, either in the form of prescription pills, heroin, or synthetic opioids such as fentanyl. There is little sign that the sharp uptick in deaths will abate any time soon, with recent research indicating that the total number of drug overdoses has grown exponentially for the past 40 years.

The SUPPORT Act is in fact a package of disparate bills, pulling together a bevy of policy approaches to try to combat the overdose death surge. It expands Medicaid coverage for individuals suffering from drug abuse disorders, increasing length of coverage for treatment from 15 to 30 days, ensuring coverage of all substance use disorders, and permitting more medical professionals to treat persons seeking to escape addiction.

One of the bill’s most notable components is Sen. Rob Portman’s (R., Ohio) STOP Act. STOP would require USPS to provide electronic data on its packages from overseas—which it currently does not—as part of an effort to combat the influx of fentanyl from China through the U.S. mail.

“Passing the STOP Act is a victory in our efforts to combat the opioid crisis and stop the influx of cheap, deadly synthetic drugs like fentanyl,” said Portman. “By closing the loophole in our international mail system that drug traffickers have exploited to ship fentanyl into the U.S., we can help law enforcement keep this poison out of our communities and ensure those gripped by addiction the chance to live up to their God-given potential.”

The SUPPORT Act also empowers the FDA to require that prescription opioids be sold in blister packs of three to seven pills, thus reducing the number of pills which can be diverted for abuse; and, according to Alexander, it “will help spur the development of a non-addictive painkiller.”

The bill’s only dissenter, Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), cited concerns about the bill’s sheer size, much of it thanks to programs unlikely to be held accountable to measures of success.

“The SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act has some good provisions in it, like the increased authority given to Customs and Border Protection to discover and destroy packages containing illegal controlled substances,” Lee said in a statement provide to the Washington Free Beacon. “Unfortunately, the bill also contains far too many unaccountable federal grant programs whose effectiveness will not be measured in any substantive way.”

Given his rhetorical focus on the opioid epidemic, Trump is likely to sign the bill—he has even signaled support for key components of it in the past. If signed, the SUPPORT Act will add substantial backing to the billion dollars in federal funding that the White House has already announced to fight the drug crisis.

Last night Allahpundit covered some of the most recent polls which show a bit of a GOP resurgence in some key races heading into the midterms. But what’s causing this disruption in the blue wave? It didn’t take a crystal ball to guess that the Democrats’ treatment of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh could be a factor. Now, however, we have some new polling which attaches solid numbers to that idea.

The Daily Caller as the rundown of a new survey (from Harvard of all places) showing that many Americans still may not be wild about President Trump, and they might not even like Brett Kavanaugh, but they’re simply disgusted by the obstruction on display in the confirmation process. And there is simply no way to spin this in a positive light for the Democrats. As one Dem strategist put it, this is nothing short of “a disaster.”

A majority of voters support the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court if the FBI finds no corroborating evidence to back up claims of sexual assault made against the nominee, according to a Monday poll.

Following Thursday’s testimonies from Kavanaugh and his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, 60 percent of voters support confirming the judge to the nation’s highest court, according to a Harvard University September 2018 Center for American Politics (CAPS) Harris Poll.

Three quarters of voters said California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein should have given the letter from Ford — in which she alleged the judge assaulted her — to the Senate Judiciary Committee when she first received it in July instead of holding it until the middle of Kavanaugh’s confirmation process.

The person taking the lion’s share of the blame in the public eye is Dianne Feinstein, which really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. If the information she had about Christine Blasey Ford was so critical, why did she sit on it until the confirmation hearings were over, springing it like some sort of gotcha trap at the eleventh hour? The list of aggrieved individuals suddenly coming forward with claims, none of which can be substantiated, doesn’t seem to be convincing to any but the most partisan liberal base voters.

Check out some of the other findings:

• A majority said the confirmation process “was politicized and mishandled.”
• 69% of voters called the process a “national disgrace.”
• After the hearing, 67% thought Ford was credible, but 50% also thought Kavanaugh was credible.
• 63% think Kavanaugh will be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

That phrase “national disgrace” should be a familiar one to you by now. And rather than being some throwaway talking point for the GOP, it seems to have resonated with the public. Underlying all of these numbers seems to be a signal that the public isn’t as concerned with right versus left or red versus blue, but rather a general sense of disgust with the partisan clown show which never seems to end in Washington.

This brings us back to the four scenarios that Allahpundit set forth last night and I’ll confess I can’t decide which of them is more likely. If the vote is held this weekend and Kavanaugh is confirmed, does that actually play to the Democrats’ favor? At that point, the issue would be taken off the table and people might simply forget about it. GOP enthusiasm could begin to slide again while the Democrats will still be just as energized to strike a blow against Trump.

But if Kavanaugh winds up being Borked, it’s a double-edged sword for Republicans. It will probably fire up the base to take revenge, but if the Democrats still somehow take control of the Senate (a prospect looking less and less likely by the day) we’re stuck with an eight-person Supreme Court for the next two and a half years. Is there a way around this? The only thing that jumps to mind is to have Cocaine Mitch delay the vote for weeks, giving everyone more time to look at the new FBI report. But that also gives every wannabe Michael Avenatti out there time to dredge up more supposed witnesses to the Yale social scene from 35 years ago. It’s a delicate situation at the moment and the midterms may yet hang in the balance.