Opinion

Gosnell & the liberal gospel

When a pro-life group put up an ad on a Soho billboard arguing that “the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb,” it was quickly denounced by two of the current candidates for mayor and taken down.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn called it “fear-mongering,” and Public Advocate Bill de Blasio invoked “common decency” in calling for its suppression.

Now we have a verdict in the trial in Philadelphia of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Yesterday, a jury found Gosnell guilty of first-degree murder for having murdered three babies born alive in his abortion clinic.

The Gosnell trial and its implications will no doubt be debated for years to come. We limit ourselves here to two things it suggests about liberal politics in our day.

First, abortion is the one glaring exception to the general liberal instinct to regulate as heavily as possible. Surely this lack of interest, coupled with the minority clientele he served, helps explain why Gosnell was able to run his house of horrors with impunity for so many years.

Second, in New York, which has become America’s abortion capital — with 57.7 percent of African-American pregnancies ending in abortion — even those who believe abortion must remain legal might agree we could do with a more open and robust discussion about how well this city is serving its women, especially if they happen to be pregnant and poor, black or Latino.