The movie “Gosnell” – about the trial of an abortion doctor who murdered babies born alive and whose malpractice caused two young woman to die – will open in theaters across the country on Friday, October 12.
It is fitting, because October 12 is the actual Columbus Day. Like Columbus’ quest, political considerations delayed the release of this important film.
There was a legitimate reason Queen Isabella held Chris back. She was fighting a war to unify Spain and eject jihadist murderers from the Iberian Peninsula. She and he husband King Fernando won the war in January 1492. They funded Columbus, and he set sail for the New World in the summer of that year.
Irish investigative documentary makers Phelim McAleer and his wife Ann McIlhinney got crowd funding to take on the Gosnell project. They raised the money in 2014, got the transcript of the grand jury report and info on the resulting trial that led to Gosnell’s convictions for murder, and put together a book and movie script based upon the judicial system records. They filmed in 2015, and released the book in 2017. The book, “Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer,” sold well.
What hung up the film’s release, besides the hatred of the leftist lunatics and pervs who run Harveywood, was a defamation lawsuit by the judge in the trial.
This, per a 6/27/2017 article in The Hollywood Reporter:
Judge Jeffrey Minehart wants at least $50,000 from filmmakers Phelim McAleer and his wife, Ann McElhinney, whom he says have portrayed him in their book — and presumably in their film — as part of “Philadelphia’s liberal corrupt government,” soft on crime and laboring under conflicts of interest.
Minehart is also suing Salem Media Group, which owns conservative and Christian radio channels that have promoted the couple’s book and their movie, which is finished but hasn’t been released or sold, and he’s suing book publisher Regnery, which is owned by Salem.
Lawyers for Minehart also make a big deal of the political leanings of Salem and Regnery, listing books by authors like Dinesh D’Souza, Phyllis Schlafly, Michelle Malkin and David Limbaugh that they say “pit conservative heroes against corrupt liberals.” On the radio side, Salem syndicates national shows from Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Larry Elder and Bill Bennett.
“They appear to publish with a predetermined agenda that colors everything they say and do,” attorney George Bochetto told The Hollywood Reporter on Friday. He wouldn’t discuss the political leanings of his client, though.
The lawyers say the book, Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, devotes 178 pages to describing Gosnell as “an evil, grotesque mass murderer” before then casting Minehart as part of the “uncaring bureaucracy” and “complicit establishment” that allowed him to, literally, get away with murder.
Lawyers are requesting “a mandatory permanent injunction” requiring the defendants to add a statement to the book and “any subsequent motion picture” saying that Minehart was selected by agreement of all the attorneys in the Gosnell case.
They also ask that McAleer and McElhinney correct allegedly false claims including how Minehart was a “drinking buddy” with Gosnell’s defense counsel and that he banned cameras from the courtroom.
If cameras were allowed in the courtroom thru the entire trial, why did they ned a courtroom artist? Or did the one media outlet not get the word?