(Credit: Philly.com)

There were over 250 counts against Gosnell. Many of them were related to Pennsylvania state law, which criminalizes abortion procedures after 24 weeks of pregnancy. The incredibly late-term, barbaric procedures that Gosnell performed were in clear violation of that law — as well as the laws that govern other types of legal late-term abortion clinics in states where later procedures are permitted.

Over the past several months, Gosnell’s high-profile murder trial has become somewhat of a rallying cry for the anti-choice community, which has attempted to twist the facts to make it appear as if all abortion providers are guilty of Gosnell’s crimes. In reality, however, Gosnell’s illegal clinic is an example of the desperate measures that women will resort to when they don’t have access to safe, affordable abortion care.

In a statement in response to the Gosnell verdict, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue noted that “justice was served,” and expressed hope that “the lessons of the trial do not fade with the verdict.”

“Anti-choice politicians, and their unrelenting efforts to deny women access to safe and legal abortion care, will only drive more women to back-alley butchers like Kermit Gosnell,” Hogue explained, noting that Pennsylvania has received an ‘F’ ranking from the organization because of the state’s multiple medically unnecessary barriers to legal abortion care. “It is my sincere hope that the women in Gosnell’s clinic did not suffer in vain and that Pennsylvania, and every state, will step up and join us in making the protection of women’s ability to get, safe, high quality, and legal abortion care a top priority.”

Ironically, abortion opponents — who falsely claim that the mainstream media has ignored Gosnell’s salacious story because of a perceived pro-choice bias — have taken exactly the opposite approach. Anti-choice Republicans have rushed to leverage the emotional outrage surrounding Gosnell’s crimes to push for more abortion restrictions across the country. Nevertheless, public opinion on abortion rights has remained unchanged by the ongoing media attention to the Gosnell trial.

A Philadelphia-area abortion doctor is currently on trial for murder, based on gruesome reports about the illegal techniques that he and his staff used to perform late-term abortions for desperate, low-income women. Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s high-profile case is sparking understandable outrage, as evidence has emerged that he may have taken advantage of vulnerable women, violated multiple medical codes, and performed inhumane surgeries.

According to prosecutors, Gosnell’s clinic went 17 years without an inspection — and abortion opponents are leveraging that to go after other abortion clinics that have no affiliation with Gosnell or his crimes. “Unfortunately and tragically in Pennsylvania, facilities were going uninspected for years,” Maria Gallagher, a lobbyist with the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation, said in reference to the ongoing trial. That’s a big reason why abortion opponents like Gallagher were able to push Pennsylvania legislators to tighten restrictions on abortion clinics in 2011, updating state law to require abortion clinics to adhere to the same standards as outpatient surgery centers. According to NPR, Gosnell’s case was “mentioned frequently” as Pennsylvania lawmakers considered, and ultimately approved, the unnecessary new restrictions.

If proven guilty, there’s no doubt that Gosnell and his staff committed horrific crimes. But the knee-jerk reaction to his murder trial — the assumption that most abortion doctors aren’t adhering to medical standards, and that the women who visit health clinics are in grave danger of receiving unsafe care — is off-base. In fact, as the right-wing pushes for tighter abortion clinic standards to make sure nothing like this ever happens again, that crusade could end up having exactly the opposite effect.

Pennsylvania’s abortion clinic restrictions fit into a larger anti-choice effort across the country that is solely intended to force abortion clinics to close their doors. In states like North Dakota, Virginia, Indiana, Mississippi, and Texas, abortion opponents are pushing legislation to force abortion clinics to adhere to unneccesary new regulations in the name of “ensuring women’s safety.” That sounds like a noble goal. But these measures — known as the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP — aren’t really about ensuring women’s safety at all. As Mississippi’s Republican governor once admitted behind closed doors at an anti-choice event, TRAP laws are about indirectly restricting women’s access to abortion by shutting down health clinics.

In Pennsylvania specifically, one Planned Parenthood affiliate was forced to spend nearly a half a million dollars to get two of its clinics into compliance with the new regulations. That involved unnecessary updates like installing hands-free sinks, replacing the floors, and updating the air-conditioning system. The affiliate’s CEO, Dayle Steinberg, explained to NPR that the state’s stricter requirements didn’t actually do anything to improve the care provided to the women at her clinics, where the complication rate is already less than one-tenth of 1 percent. “They were thinly disguised as improving patient safety, when really it was about increasing the cost for abortion providers — hoping that some of them wouldn’t be able to afford it,” Steinberg said.

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Now that the Republican governors in Ohio and New Jersey have both announced their support for expanding their states’ Medicaid programs under Obamacare — joining Democratic-led New York and Maryland — Pennsylvania is surrounded. Gov. Tom Corbett (R) has resisted cooperating with this Obamacare provision so far. But now, members of his own party are beginning to pressure him to change his mind and join his neighbors:

Now the heat is coming from some of Corbett’s fellow Republicans in the state legislature.

State Rep. Gene DiGirolamo (R., Bucks) said Wednesday that he supported Medicaid expansion because it would provide health insurance for an estimated 700,000 Pennsylvanians, many in low-wage jobs.

“We should do everything possible to get this done for the state of Pennsylvania,” DiGirolamo, chairman of the Human Services Committee, said Wednesday. “Most of the people we are talking about are in the workforce making $10 to $12 an hour and have no health care.”

At the same time, a top Senate Republican said he had tasked his staff with examining Medicaid expansion costs and benefits in advance of budget negotiations in the spring. Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman (R., Centre) said that the Senate GOP caucus might take a position of its own on Medicaid expansion — he did not elaborate — and that the issue could figure into the budget process.

Partisan resistance to Obamacare is finally beginning to wane, as eight Republican leaders have now conceded that resisting health reform on a state level might not be worth the political statement. The GOP leaders who have agreed to carry out this provision of the health reform law have all acknowledged that it will make financial sense for their state budgets — since the federal government will finance the full cost of expansion for the first several years — as well as help ensure that thousands of low-income Americans receive the care they need.

And the pressure may be getting to Corbett. On Thursday, the day after Christie announced he supports Medicaid expansion in New Jersey, the Pennsylvania governor agreed to meet with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to “discuss questions” about his options for expanding the Keystone State’s Medicaid program under Obamacare.