NPR: A Sharper Abortion Debate After Gosnell Verdict

The murder conviction in Philadelphia for the deaths of three babies and one of his female patients is likely to further inflame the already heated abortion debate. Editor in Chief Jodi Jacobson is interviewed in this report by NPR's Julie Rovner.

The murder conviction in Philadelphia of Kermit Gosnell in the deaths of three babies and one of his female patients is likely to further inflame the already heated abortion debate. Editor in Chief Jodi Jacobson is interviewed in this report by NPR’s Julie Rovner:

Abortion rights backers insist he’s an outlier.

“The fact is that what he did was illegal — unethical, unscrupulous, illegal,” says Jodi Jacobson. “And it bears no comparison to safe abortion care or even late abortion care, because he performed abortions post-viability on women without indications for such, so they were illegal.”

Jacobson, who runs , an online daily news service about reproductive rights and sexual politics, says most states already have laws that bar abortions late in pregnancy — except when there are medical reasons.

“If you have a late abortion situation in the third trimester, you are facing either a threat to the life or the health of the mother, or a fetus with anomalies incompatible with life,” she says.

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