3801 Lancaster: An American Tragedy

Jack the Ripper was an amateur compared with abortionist Kermit Gosnell. The Ripper of 19th-century fame was feared and widely condemned while Gosnell was protected by powerful politicians, including Republican Gov. Tom Ridge. The Ripper picked on the poor and disadvantaged and led the news of his day. Gosnell—before being found guilty of first-degree murder—ripped more women, and everybody wishes to hide from his story.

David M. Altrogge has made a masterful documentary, 3801 Lancaster: An American Tragedy, about the exploitation of African-American and Anglo lower-class women by a sociopath still writing poetry about his moral virtue. The power of the documentary is that it allows pro-abortion and pro-life critics of Gosnell to speak. The film does not sanitize the lives of his victims. Gosnell thrived because he was winsome, articulate, plausible, and on the right side of smart politics while his victims were poor, often minorities, and unable to find defenders.

Altrogge lets Gosnell speak and nothing damns him more than his own words. We see his filthy clinic, hear children tell of the harm he did them that was worse than rapes they experienced, and then listen to his smooth, self-justifying words.

It is hard to criticize such a powerful film, but the connection of Gosnell’s horror with Planned Parenthood of Delaware is rushed as the filmmaker falls into the temptation to tell too many stories. The modesty of the filmmakers fails them, and they try to do too much. Still this is a documentary worthy of comparison to the best of Ken Burns.

We are given sympathetic human beings who are not cartoons, and we see how Gosnell could exploit them and why our “elites” could ignore them. The film reminds us that Gosnell was a mass murderer protected by the political class, Jack the Ripper with a lobby in Harrisburg.

Tom Ridge deserves to have his career end. The politicians who protected Gosnell will find justice before God.