The Kermit Gosnell trial brought a whirlwind of activity to Pennsylvania last spring.

During the trial, our office was busy responding to media calls, passing along updates on social media, writing blogs and columns, and giving talks all across the state.

Now that Gosnell has been convicted of murder, things have slowed down a bit and I’ve been able to reflect more on the whole horrible situation.

I’ve had the chance to stop and really wonder: Who were these babies who he killed so mercilessly? What would they have looked like? What would their lives have become? We will never know the answers to these questions, but there are some things we do know.

A number of the abortions Gosnell performed were on babies 24 weeks old (the cutoff in Pennsylvania) or older.

At 24 weeks, babies have their own unique fingerprints. They can hiccup and squint, smile and frown. Their hair is starting to grow, and their vocal chords are working. They also can hear sounds outside the womb – a parent’s voice, a song, or maybe a book being read. These babies even can suck their thumbs.

At 24 weeks, they had a good chance of surviving on their own outside their mother’s womb. Twenty-four weeks is considered viability, though younger babies have been born and survived.

It makes me so sad to realize that we will never know more than that about these individuals. And it’s mind boggling to think that we’ll never know 55 million others who suffered similar fates.

The one thing I do know is this: Every single one of those lives was and is valuable. No matter who they were or where they came from or what they had, they deserve the right to life.