Rep. Marsha Blackburn to Speak on Media's Cover-Up of Gosnell Trial on 'The O'Reilly Factor'
Warning: graphic material in following article.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) is scheduled to appear on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" Wednesday night to discuss the media's failure to cover the murder trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who is accused of killing one patient and four babies in his West Philadelphia abortion clinic.
Judge Jeffrey Minehart dropped three of the first-degree murder charges against Gosnell on Tuesday after defense attorney Jack McMahon argued that the medical examiner wasn't able to prove that the babies had been born alive, due to their bodies' condition after having been frozen inside freezers at Gosnell's clinic.
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Gosnell, 72, could receive the death penalty if the jury finds him guilty of murder charges. He faces four counts of first-degree murder for allegedly killing babies who were born alive; and one count of third-degree murder for the death of Karnamaya Monger, a 41-year-old refugee who died in 2009 from a Demerol overdose administered to her at the Women's Medical Society abortion clinic that he owned and operated for 40 years in West Philadelphia.
Former employees have testified to seeing babies born alive and breathing before Gosnell "snipped" their necks and gashed their spinal cords with scissors.
On April 17, Reps. Blackburn, Steve Scalise (R-La.), and 70 other House members sent a joint letter to ABC, NBC and CBS asking them to end their media blackout of the Gosnell trial, and to start covering "high-profile abortion controversies" that are of interest to the public.
"The broadcasters' blackout of the Planned Parenthood infanticide lobbying scandal and the Gosnell 'House of Horrors' murder trial are the biggest and most politically-motivated media cover-ups in our nation's history," Blackburn said in a statement released to CP. "Censorship and media bias allows the corrupt abortion industry to profit at the expense of innocent women and children. The mainstream media has a responsibility to report the truth, not turn a blind eye to the biggest civil rights issue of our time."
Since the murder trial started in March, there have been few mentions of it on NBC, ABC and CBS. MSNBC mentioned the case last week, during the trial's fifth week, and PBS Newshour interviewed an Associated Press reporter about the trial during Monday's program. AP reporter Maryclaire Dale told Newshour host Judy Woodruff the media's lack of coverage is due to the fact that "cameras are not allowed in courtrooms in Pennsylvania."
Exceptions to this media blackout are the more conservative Fox News and local media in Philadelphia, where the trial is taking place, as well as local media in Delaware, where Gosnell also worked part-time at an abortion clinic in Wilmington.
"By failing to cover this story and turning their backs on the culture of abortion in this country, the media has failed in their duty to provide unbiased coverage of this horrific tragedy," said Scalise in a joint statement with Blackburn.
According to the prosecution, before the death of Monger, Gosnell had performed more than 200 illegal late-term abortions.
District Attorney R. Seth Williams laid out the case against Gosnell, his wife, Pearl, and eight employees in a grand jury report, which reveals that Gosnell profited $10,000 to $15,000 a day at his late-term abortion clinic – not including the $200,000 he made from writing 2,300 illegal prescriptions for OxyContin and other addictive drugs.
