2nd Thoughts on Gosnell
The doctor, and his attorney, had their day in court and their day in the press. Was I too soft on them?
I feel a little like Cole Hamels after letting one go that gets hammered into the left field upper deck.
He wishes he could have that back.
In today's column, out of fairness, I let Kermit Gosnell's veteran attorney, Jack McMahon, have his say:
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/stu_bykofsky/20130517_The_blame_game.html
I think my view of his client is apparent, but I wish I had back the column to delve into McMahon's reasons for believing his client innocent: Mainly it is that digoxin, the drug administrered to kill the fetus -- this is legal -- works 90-95 percent of the time. That figure does not appear in the column, partly because of space restraints and partly because it didn't "fit" into the narrative I constructed.
The next day, today, I realize that 90-95 percent could well have resulted in live births.
I know the medical examiner said the autopsy showed the births were not live, and any movement seen by the doctor's staff might have been involuntary, or imaginary.
Still, I think I could and should have hammered him harder on that point.
What do you think?