SIGforum
Media blackout on Gosnell film

This topic can be found at:
https://sigforum.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/320601935/m/7110056844

October 22, 2018, 08:59 AM
Dusty78
Media blackout on Gosnell film
Most people have no idea that this movie exists because of the media blackout. It was only just released but most theaters are pulling it even though it was a hit in terms of revenue for an independent film. I’m not a rabid antiabortionist but I can’t help but be amazed by the continued hypocrisy of the media.

‘Gosnell,’ Like Its Namesake, Faces a Media Blackout - WSJ

Oct. 16, 2018 6:56 p.m. ET
People pray at a pro-life rally in Philadelphia, July 23, 2016.
People pray at a pro-life rally in Philadelphia, July 23, 2016.Photo: Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images
“Gosnell” is a difficult film to watch, not because of what appears on the screen—it’s rated PG-13—but because of what is left to the viewer’s imagination. This might explain why the theater where I caught the film Friday was mostly empty. But other explanations are worth considering.

Kermit Gosnell, who was convicted of murder following a two-month trial in 2013, is currently serving a life sentence in prison with no possibility of parole. He was an abortion doctor based in Philadelphia, where state law prohibits the procedure beginning at 24 weeks gestational age. By his own admission, Dr. Gosnell regularly performed illegal late-term abortions, mostly on low-income minority women. In some cases he would induce labor, deliver live babies, and then kill them by snipping the backs of their necks with scissors.

Nick Searcy directed the film, based on a book of the same title by a married couple of investigative journalists from Ireland, Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer. In an essay last month, Mr. Searcy explained why he was drawn to the subject. “It is nearly impossible to find an adult person who does not have an opinion on the issue of abortion,” he wrote in National Review, “and yet how little we all know about it—how it is done, what the laws are surrounding it, how it is regulated, legislated, and practiced. I wanted to share that knowledge.”

Dr. Gosnell’s story may not change a single mind about abortion, yet the movie and book make an important contribution to a debate that continues to rage 45 years after Roe v. Wade. They offer a better understanding of what “abortion rights” mean in practice and a renewed appreciation of the tragic consequences that can result when politicians, public-health officials and the media put blind ideology ahead of basic human decency.

Dr. Gosnell had been performing illegal abortions for decades before law-enforcement officials stumbled upon him, and when they did, it was for reasons that had nothing to do with his abortion practice. In 2009 a detective investigating prescription-drug dealing in Philadelphia received a tip about Dr. Gosnell from an informant. It turned out he was selling prescriptions for OxyContin, Percocet and Xanax to anyone who could afford his $150 fee. On a typical night, Dr. Gosnell would write some 200 prescriptions. After law-enforcement officials raided his clinic in 2010, however, busting up one of Pennsylvania’s largest pill mills was no longer the most pressing concern.

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In their book, Ms. McElhinney and Mr. McAleer write that the Gosnell raid unveiled “a house of horrors.” The toilets were clogged with fetal remains. Cupboards contained jars with the severed feet of infants inside. In refrigerators and freezers, detectives found more discarded fetuses stored in milk cartons, water jugs, cat-food containers and Minute Maid juice boxes with the tops cut off to make the openings larger. Later, authorities would discover that Dr. Gosnell employed “assistants”—who had no medical training and were paid under the table—to sedate patients, conduct ultrasounds and administer labor-inducing drugs.

Dr. Gosnell’s story becomes even more upsetting when you realize how much sooner he should have been caught. State inspectors visited the clinic three times between 1989 and 1993. Each time they discovered that no registered nurses were on staff, as the law requires, yet permitted him to continue providing abortions. After Tom Ridge, a pro-choice Republican, became governor in 1994, the state Department of Health stopped all routine inspections of abortion clinics.

Even when state officials received complaints about Dr. Gosnell, they were reluctant to follow up. A woman who received an abortion at his clinic in 1999 later became ill and was admitted to the hospital. Dr. Gosnell had mistakenly left the baby’s arm and leg inside the mother. State Health Department officials decided that no investigation was warranted. When Dr. Gosnell botched another abortion in a similar fashion years later, state officials again looked the other way.

Once Dr. Gosnell’s trial began in 2013, it was the national media’s turn to ignore him. Fox News gave the trial significant attention, but few other major outlets did the same. The liberal press knew the story would cast a negative light on abortion, and that concerned them much more than bringing to justice a doctor who committed infanticide and routinely risked the health of women.

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Ultimately, social media shamed the press into covering the trial, and you won’t be shocked to find out that interest in the story hasn’t lasted. Some outlets have refused to run ads for the film, and almost all major publications have declined to review it. Which also helps explain why I had so little company on Friday.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/g...-blackout-1539730589


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October 22, 2018, 09:00 AM
Dusty78
https://www.google.com/amp/s/w...-office-success/amp/

Here’s a story about how the movie disappeared from theaters


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October 22, 2018, 09:06 AM
chellim1
The Democrat-Left-Media complex is the enemy of America as founded. They choose what to cover, and how, all to support the GDC narrative.



"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible."
-- Justice Janice Rogers Brown

"The United States government is the largest criminal enterprise on earth."
-rduckwor
October 22, 2018, 09:07 AM
thunderson
I read an article last week that said the film spent two years completed but couldn't find a distributor because nobody wanted to buck the Hollywood pro-abortion line



I have the heart of a lion.......and a lifetime ban from the Toronto Zoo.- Unknown
October 22, 2018, 09:13 AM
mark_a
Interesting. Dean Cain was all over Fox this weekend but I didn't have time to listen.


Now I know why...
October 22, 2018, 09:33 AM
oddball
When I heard about Gosnell a couple years back, I couldn't believe a monster like that was allowed to exist, it was straight out of a horror story. The film has seen the light with the usual folks, Rush, Hannity, etc. But not a single peep out of the mainstream, not even a negative news clip.



"I’m not going to read Time Magazine, I’m not going to read Newsweek, I’m not going to read any of these magazines; I mean, because they have too much to lose by printing the truth"- Bob Dylan, 1965
October 22, 2018, 10:35 AM
Mikito
My wife and I donated to their crowd funding. We saw an early showing of the movie with the director. It was very well-done.

The director Ann McElhinney is a former liberal and a very compelling speaker. You can probably check her out on youtube if interested.

Search "Baby Boy A" if you want to see some Gosnell horror.
October 22, 2018, 11:05 AM
Rinehart
Other than Fox and seeing the Dean Cain interview it's been crickets...
October 22, 2018, 11:06 AM
darthfuster
Can have anyone shutting down the machine....



You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier
October 22, 2018, 02:17 PM
craigcpa
Tagged for future use is debates.


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Just my 2¢
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October 22, 2018, 02:28 PM
bald1
quote:
Originally posted by Mikito:


The director Ann McElhinney is a former liberal and a very compelling speaker. You can probably check her out on youtube if interested.


She was a producer NOT director. Nick Searcy directed the film.

http://www.gosnellmovie.com/about/



Certifiable member of the gun toting, septuagenarian, bucket list workin', crazed retiree, bald is beautiful club!
USN (RET), COTEP #192
October 22, 2018, 02:54 PM
Mikito
Sorry for the mistake.

quote:
Originally posted by bald1:
quote:
Originally posted by Mikito:


The director Ann McElhinney is a former liberal and a very compelling speaker. You can probably check her out on youtube if interested.


She was a producer NOT director. Nick Searcy directed the film.

http://www.gosnellmovie.com/about/

October 22, 2018, 03:35 PM
Fenris
Saw it at the theatre with Mrs Fenris. Gosnell was inarguably true evil. Yet, the leftists that tolerated, protected and continue to ignore him are a greater evil.




God Bless and Protect our Beloved President, Donald John Trump.
October 22, 2018, 03:53 PM
Dusty78
quote:
Originally posted by Fenris:
Saw it at the theatre with Mrs Fenris. Gosnell was inarguably true evil. Yet, the leftists that tolerated, protected and continue to ignore him are a greater evil.


Not to mention the republican governor at the time


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October 22, 2018, 04:08 PM
Fenris
quote:
Originally posted by Dusty78:
quote:
Originally posted by Fenris:
Saw it at the theatre with Mrs Fenris. Gosnell was inarguably true evil. Yet, the leftists that tolerated, protected and continue to ignore him are a greater evil.

Not to mention the republican governor at the time

True. Ridge was hardly blameless.




God Bless and Protect our Beloved President, Donald John Trump.
October 22, 2018, 04:08 PM
SIGnified
Counterpoint: Maybe it's not entertainment people would pay for much. At least I wouldn't spend my free time, much less pay for watching this evil.

I don't need to taste crap to know it's gonna taste like crap (and likely make me ill). YMMV.





"Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty."
~Robert A. Heinlein
October 22, 2018, 05:34 PM
synthplayer
I have said for decades that if a real documentary was made about abortion, and the movie-goers would actually see what happens, there would immediately be a hue and cry for this barbarism to stop. Those people who endorse abortion are fully aware of this, so it is of utmost importance to them that the public remain naive about it and only discuss it in an academic way.

Whenever an individual feels a need to censor someone else, that's a clear indication that the individual KNOWS the truth but just refuses accept it, much less embrace it.



Of all the enemies the American citizen faces, the Democrat Party is the very worst.
October 22, 2018, 05:52 PM
Bulldog7972
quote:
Originally posted by SIGnified:
Counterpoint: Maybe it's not entertainment people would pay for much. At least I wouldn't spend my free time, much less pay for watching this evil.

I don't need to taste crap to know it's gonna taste like crap (and likely make me ill). YMMV.


I understand what you are saying but i want to go if only to show support to Nick Searcy and those that made this film.
October 22, 2018, 05:56 PM
TMats
No one here can possibly be surprised that there’s a media blackout of this movie; there was a similar blackout when Gosnell was arrested and then convicted of murder.


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despite them
October 23, 2018, 04:19 AM
TRIO
I remember when the story broke, there was just a focus on unclean practices, non-trained personnel, and drug dealing. Only a quick blurb about it, very little coverage or follow up.

This was from a Philly news station.