I want to coin a new verb, “to Gosnell”, with the present participle, adjective and gerund “Gosnelling”, and the past participle “Gosnelled”. The term is referenced, of course, to the disgraceful, ideologically-based silence of most of the U.S. national media ‑ notoriously liberal, and mainly New York and Washington based ‑ during the horrific Kermit Gosnell abortion-clinic trial. Only at its conclusion was there anything like the media coverage which the case obviously warranted, and much of that was sheepish and embarrassed. The massive left-consensus to minimize public awareness of the case was so blatant that it drew blistering condemnations from Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia and from Fox News, to their everlasting credit. 

    I define “Gosnelling” as “the concealment of horrifying happenings from the public by persons or institutions which should be reporting them”. I shall say no more about the Gosnell case itself, but shall focus on the Gosnelling of other matters. At a later date I shall address an equally disturbing phenomenon ‑ the sometime desire or readiness of people to be Gosnelled.

    A good friend of my brother’s from our school-days, and a friendly acquaintance of mine, is a fellow-Canberran who is now a very senior public servant. His politics are not mine, but he is one of the shrinking number of high-level public servants who do not let their personal politics influence their performance of their professional duties, and as a result he has been valued and promoted by both sides of politics. About fifteen years ago I was sitting with him and his wife at a birthday party for my brother in Melbourne when I had occasion to tell him some facts about the Australian Capital Territory (that is, Canberra) of which he had no idea, but which left him aghast.

    Here is the background to what I told him. A year or two before, one of my daughters brought home from her all-girls Canberra Catholic school materials which had been given to her class by a visiting ACT government-paid Domestic Violence feminist. The brochures were expensively produced, violently anti-male, anti-family hate propaganda. The girls were supposed to hand them back, but my daughter wisely retained her set. The affair led me to investigate the Domestic Violence industry in Canberra; and the local newspaper, the Canberra Times, published an article in which I exposed what was going on – a rare example of non-Gosnelling. From the prolific letters-to-the-editor and telephone calls in response, I learned a great deal more about the power and ugliness of this vile feminist industry, and of the magnitude of the harm it relished doing against ordinary people. Most disturbing of all, I discovered how the Domestic Violence feminists had been able to have draconian laws, violating every tenet of natural justice and Westminster legal principles, passed by the ACT Legislative Assembly, with none of the political parties or politicians daring to oppose the bills, and with the media giving the laws no publicity.

    I found that the Domestic Violence feminists boasted in their writings that the “interventionist” model they were following had been developed and refined by the Sisterhood in Duluth, Minnesota. I discovered that the ACT politicians, of all parties, had given them power to indoctrinate with their poison, and to influence the procedures of, the ACT police; and had given them influence over the Territory’s courts. I learned that any male who was accused of physical violence by his wife, female partner, or female co-resident, and had an Apprehended Violence Order taken out against him (always without being informed), was automatically evicted from his home by the police with nothing but the clothes he had on; and that if he went within 200 metres of the home or telephoned the woman, or went within 200 metres of the her work-place – even at her invitation ‑ he was gaoled immediately. I discovered that although the man was entitled to a court hearing within ten days, if he had the temerity to defend himself there was always an adjournment for three months; and at the later hearing it was easy for the other party to get a further three months’ adjournment. In the interim the AVO stayed in force.

    My distinguished schoolfellow was incredulous and appalled that this could be happening in the city where he lived without his knowing. Yet he was one of Australia’s top-rank public servants, and made it his business to be aware of what was happening in Canberra and throughout Australia. Why didn’t he know? Simple. He’d been Gosnelled. Usually the first a Canberra male learns of the monstrous situation described is when he is suddenly thrown out of his home by the police and frog-marched 200 metres away, or when this happens to a married son, a brother, or a close friend.

    The situation has become far worse since that party. A little-reported peak-conference was held under Federal Government auspices a few years later where femocrats representing the federal bureaucracy and all the Australian states were briefed on what to do by the ACT femocrats. The ACT Domestic Violence laws were then taken up by the state governments, with all-party consent organized behind the scenes by the femocrats, and with no politician ever daring to speak up against the hideous scam for fear of being branded as “soft on violence against women”. There was never more than cursory reporting of the laws – the media, like the parliamentary parties, Gosnelled the news. Moreover, by this time the definition of “domestic violence” had been extended to encompass “psychological” and “emotional” violence ‑ these are now criminal offences in the ACT ‑ so that a woman can have her husband or male partner given an AVO and evicted merely by alleging that she feels threatened. Mail-order brides from Russia come over with advance knowledge of the racket, move in with their doting beaux (marriage is irrelevant), and within a couple of days phone the police, allege physical violence or being made to feel unsafe, and the fellow is instantly thrown out of his home with nothing; with no chance of being heard in court for several months; and with no power to have her evicted. The kinds of atrocities described happen on a massive scale in Australia, as doubtlessly in those U.S. states which have kindred feminist laws, but the general public never has the remotest idea. Why not? Because the facts are Gosnelled.

    It is especially disturbing that the public is Gosnelled not merely by the left-wing press and electronic media, but by other bodies which know what is happening and should urgently inform everyone – media bodies which are not left-wing; Church “social justice” commissions; law societies and law reform committees (lawyers make fortunes from the racket); government and Church social work departments, and so on.

    The domestic violence femocrats control the bureaucracy of the Australian federal Family Court – a misnomer for the family-destroying national divorce court. They conduct indoctrination seminars for the justices, some of whom are entrenched members of the Sisterhood anyway; and in custody cases they routinely call in pet psychologists to testify that the father had created an “abusive environment” injurious to his children’s psychological health, and is likely to continue doing so if he is given the chance.

    Next to the death of a spouse, child or parent, nothing can cause more devastation to an ordinary person than a family break-up which he or she did not precipitate, especially if he (almost always) or she (rarely) is then treated with outrageous injustice by the legal system. Obviously, major injustices which cause and exacerbate family disruption should therefore be a continuous subject of attention, publicity, and campaigns for rectification, by the mass-media, the political parties, the Churches, social work bodies, and law bodies. It doesn’t happen. Everything is hush-hush. We are all being Gosnelled.