Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer

Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer.  Regnery Publishing, 2017.  256 pages.  Hardcover, $27.99.

 

This is not an easy book to read. According to Ann McElhinney’s preface, it was even harder to write. She describes the process of creating the book, saying that, “Reading the testimony and sifting through the evidence in the case in the research for this book and for writing the script of the movie has been brutal. I have wept at my computer. I have said the Our Father sitting at my desk. I am no holy roller– I hadn’t prayed in years– but at times when I was confronted with the worst of this story I didn’t know what else to do.”

 

I am not sure how to recommend reading this book.  It might be too much to take all in one sitting, but if someone were to start reading and set it aside, it might be too difficult to start reading again.  And it does need to be read in its entirety, because it is one of the more powerful and disturbing books that I have read recently. The tone is just right– another writer might have poured on the outrage at the expense of the quality of the narrative. An emotionally powered, angry book might have backfired and created a less gripping story, and while the central character is enigmatic in many ways, it soon becomes absolutely evident that he has no shame or remorse over what he did.

 

Dr. Kermit Gosnell ran an infamous abortion clinic in Philadelphia for many years. As described in the book, it was as close to being a hell on earth as humanly possible. The conditions were so unsanitary that merely reading the descriptions make one wish to spray one’s eyes with Lysol. Animals, waste matter, and fetal remains filled the building, many babies were born alive and killed soon afterwards in grisly manners, and some of Gosnell’s patients died due to complications from botched abortions. In addition, some members of the staff were inadequately trained, and an illegal drug prescription business proliferated.

 

A simple description of the filth and squalor is enough to make one seriously ill. The descriptions of the various forces that kept this clinic going are even more unsettling. Politicians and government employees failed in their duties to regulate Gosnell’s business, and members of the press who pride themselves on their investigative skills and revealing cover-ups simply sat on their hands and refused to provide coverage of what was going on at the clinic. The book provides a double gut punch. The reader is left nauseated by what happened, and enraged that those who swore to protect society failed in their duties.

 

In his introduction, Alan Robertson writes, “Page after page of this book shows how many people whose job it was to protect women and children instead failed them miserably.  It started with a greedy Dr. Gosnell and his untrained and severely flawed staff.  Dr. Gosnell’s wife, Pearl, became his willing accomplice instead of his ultimate accountability.  The Pennsylvania Department of Health and other higher government officials, including a Republican governor, failed to protect and do their jobs. They ignored truth, looked the other way, and did not enforce the law.  The local and national media did nothing to shine light on this story and even when shamed to cover the trial did the minimum in terms of reporting.”

 

There are some flashes of light in this gruesome narrative. Probably the nicest pages of the book are those devoted to Detective Jim Wood and his work. Known as “Woody,” the detective was instrumental in bringing down Gosnell and revealing what happened behind the clinic doors.  Wood has not had an easy life– several grueling family tragedies he endured are recounted in the book– but nothing seems to have blunted his determination to do good in the world.

 

If Wood represents human decency in this book, several of the other characters, mostly clinic workers, embody the most disturbing ethical lapses and moral colorblindness to which people can fall prey. Various members of the clinic staff are profiled, and reading how they started working there and what they did is like watching a fifty-car pileup on the freeway happen in slow motion. Most memorable and unsettling of all is the portrayal of Gosnell himself. Gosnell is interviewed towards the end of the book, and his cool, confident in his own eventual exoneration persona is haunting.

 

Disturbing, difficult, and ultimately heartbreaking, Gosnell is well worth the effort that goes into reading it.

–Chris Chan

This review first appeared in Gilbert!