Pro-lifers rally on the anniversary of Gosnell's conviction

On the one-year anniversary of Kermit Gosnell’s murder conviction, pro-lifers remembered the Philadelphia abortionist’s crimes and called for tighter restrictions to ensure such horrors don’t happen again.

Shortly after midnight, the producers of a new documentary about Gosnell declared victory in a crowdfunding campaign that ended Monday. The team behind Gosnell set one of the biggest financial goals in the history of movie crowdfunding—$2.1 million. By Monday’s deadline, 26,574 people had pledged $2,241,043 to help make the film. The campaign’s remarkable success came after a rocky start: Crowdfunding giant Kickstarter refused to let the producers describe the graphic but well-documented truth about Gosnell, forcing the team to relocate fundraising to lesser-known Indiegogo.

Irish journalists and filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney and Polish documentary-maker Magdalena Segieda are creating the film, which they say will detail crimes the mainstream media largely ignored. “You proved Hollywood and the mainstream media were wrong covering up this story and you proved there are many, many people who want it told,” they told their supporters.

The producers have given poignant foretastes of the film on YouTube by simply reading the graphic grand jury report on camera. Other pro-lifers also referred to the grand jury report Tuesday, calling on the public not to view Gosnell as an outlier.

After all, the report revealed the Pennsylvania government was a complicit partner in Gosnell’s case by ignoring or refusing to enforce existing laws, noted members of a Heritage Foundation panel held to mark the anniversary. “That is one of the lessons of the Gosnell case: A systemic failure of government,” said Ovide Lamontagne, a lawyer with Americans United for Life. “I submit to you that we’re having the same systemic failure throughout the country.”

Gosnell’s trial and the grand jury report’s graphic findings led to a rash of new pro-life legislation across the country. But the abortion industry, and pro-abortion politicians and judges, have fought back. Marking the anniversary on Capitol Hill Tuesday, pro-life Senate leaders Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., alongside the Susan B. Anthony List, called on their Democratic colleagues to protect babies who can feel pain.

Thirteen states and the U.S. House have passed 20-week abortion bans, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., won’t bring the bill to the Senate floor. The United States is among only seven countries to permit elective abortions after 20 weeks, lawyer Angelina Baglini of the Charlotte Lozier Institute said Tuesday at the Heritage Foundation.