In the wake of the jury verdict today in the murder trial of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, Congressman Chris Smith (NJ-04), Co-Chairman of the House Bipartisan Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, released the following statement:

   “With today’s murder convictions of Dr. Gosnell, we’ve got to encourage Americans to ask—how different really is Gosnell’s House of Horrors from abortions that occur in clinics throughout the country? Not much, not much at all,” said Smith.

   “There are Kermit Gosnells all over America—predators, child abusers, exploiters of women. 

   “Some abortionists may have cleaner sheets than Gosnell, and better sterilized equipment and better trained accomplices, but what they do—what Gosnell did—kill babies and hurt women—is the same.

   “Will Americans ever be told the horrifying details as to how—and how often—abortionists dismember, decapitate, and chemically poison innocent babies?

   “Where is the outrage, over the 55 million child victims who have been brutally killed by abortion over the last 40 years, and the millions of women have been hurt physically, emotionally, psychologically?

   “And why the appalling lack of compassion—why the empathy deficit for the victims, women and children by so many, including and especially President Obama.  Women and Children Deserve better.

   “And of course Gosnell’s trial isn’t the first to rip the benign façade of legitimacy from the abortion industry. 

   “As far back as 1975, Dr. Kenneth Edelin was convicted by a jury in Boston of murdering a little African-American baby boy. That conviction was subsequently overturned by the Massachusetts Supreme Court.

   “How did Planned Parenthood react to the reversal? With euphoric celebration. Years later Edelin became the Chairman of the Board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America—and was given the Margaret Sanger Award in 2008 (in 2009, Planned Parenthood gave the Sanger award to Hillary Clinton). And like Gosnell, not a single tear for the boy murdered in Boston City Hospital.”