A Grand Jury in Philadelphia has released its report and recommendations on Dr. Kermit Gosnell, abortionist. You can read it here, but it comes with a strong warning – it is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. Here is how it begins:
This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Philadelphia Grand Jury Report, p.1
It then goes into detail. Over 250 pages of detail if you count the charges recommended by the jury .
Dr. Gosnell’s practice may have been a “filthy fraud,” but it was lucrative; one year he earned over $1.5 million. Specializing in late term abortions that other doctors would not do, he set up his practice relying on the actions of unqualified employees in his absence. It was they who administered the drugs to induce labor and the drugs to sedate patients into a stupor, while he showed up many hours later to complete the abortions.
Sometimes babies did not deliver and had to be removed by the doctor, with calamitous results. In one instance Dr. Gosnell tore a patient’s cervix and colon and doctors in a hospital had to remove almost half a foot of her intestines. In another he perforated a 19-year-old’s uterus requiring a hysterectomy. He sent another patient home with fetal parts remaining insider her, and she was near death by the time she was admitted to the hospital. Yet no one investigated Kermit Gosnell.
Pennsylvania is not a third-world country. There were several oversight agencies that stumbled upon and should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago. But none of them did, not even after Karnamaya Mongar’s death*. In the end, Gosnell was only caught by accident, when police raided his offices to seize evidence of his illegal prescription selling. Once law enforcement agents went in, they couldn’t help noticing the disgusting conditions, the dazed patients, the discarded fetuses. That is why the complete regulatory collapse that occurred here is so inexcusable. It should have taken only one look. Philadelphia Grand Jury Report, p.8
The reason for that “complete regulatory collapse” is the politics of abortion. In 1993 Pennsylvania stopped all inspections of abortion clinics so as not to put any barriers in the way of a woman’s right to have an abortion. Once law enforcement agents became involved with the doctor and the press took notice the Department of Health suddenly discarded that philosophy and shut the clinic down within a week.
The Grand Jury Report recommends Kermit Gosnell be charged with seven counts of murder, two counts of infancticide, and numerous counts of other crimes, while regretting that he cannot be charged for the innumerable unproven murders staffers say they witnessed at his hands.
Four of his staffers are also being charged, most for committing murder at the clinic in the same manner he taught them.
Officials from the Pennsylvania Department of Health have now “lawyered up” with attorneys from a high priced law firm. At taxpayer expense, of course.
* When Karnamay Mongar stopped breathing on Dr. Gosnell’s operating table, likely from an overdose of Demerol, his staff eventually called paramedics who transported her to a hospital where she was declared dead. No one investigated the doctor or his clinic, and he continued performing abortions.
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