Abstract
The 2013 conviction of Dr. Kermit Gosnell for murdering three newly delivered babies whose mothers had come to him for abortions raises a number of questions. Not the least of them concerns the sharp dichotomy that live birth involves: a doctor deliberately taking the life of a woman's infant seconds after birth with or without the woman's permission is infanticide, but a doctor deliberately taking the life of a woman's infant any time before birth is effectuating the woman's constitutionally protected right to abortion. Incidentally, the legal term for what Dr. Gosnell did is first-degree murder, which, in Pennsylvania, is punishable by the death penalty. Dr. Gosnell escaped the death penalty only because he plea bargained for a life sentence in lieu of appealing his conviction.