The Kermit Gosnell case in Philadelphia has brought to light a painful issue in America that is often not publicized enough: abortion.
The trial uncovered brutal atrocities, such as babies in bags and cartons in a freezer, severed feet in jars, and 45 babies turned over to the Philadelphia medical examiner after a raid of the clinic.
Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, presided over a service to give names to those babies last month.
“People have names. People deserve names,” Father Pavone said during the 30-minute service in the chapel of Priests for Life headquarters. “The name expresses the person. The name recognizes that there is a person there.”
Pavone requested permission in April from the Philadelphia medical examiner to receive the bodies of the 45 babies so they could be honored in a proper burial and funeral. The medical examiner recently told the organization the bodies “will not be released to any third-party organization.”
“Kermit Gosnell was committed of first-degree murder of human beings,” Bryan Kemper, the founder of Rock for Life, Stand True and the pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity, told Charisma News. “We need to give these human beings the dignity that they deserve in a real funeral, and we need to pressure the medical examiner to make sure this happens.
“If this was any other human being, most people would go nuts if the the medical examiner were to deny a funeral. … We need to make sure that these children are given the dignity of a funeral.”
Kemper, who is also the youth outreach director for Priests for Life, is leading a movement on Twitter to urge the medical examiner to change his decision and release the bodies for burial.
“On Friday, June 7, demand a funeral for the Gosnell babies by spreading the word about this on Twitter and other social media with the hashtag #GosnellBabies,” gosnellbabies.com urges.
The “Tweetfest” is asking people to tweet messages to influential politicians, religious leaders, media personalities, celebrities, musicians and media outlets on Friday in support of the cause.
For a list of recommended tweets and people to tweet, visit gosnellbabies.com or check out the Facebook event.
This is not the first Tweetfest Kemper has orchestrated. Stand True sponsored a campaign in April that had “#Gosnell” trending nationwide on April 12, helping to bring attention to the case, which had not been highlighted in the media much until then.