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"I considered myself to be in a war against poverty, and I feel
comfortable with the things I did and the decisions I made."
~ Kermit Gosnell (AP Photo/Philadelphia Daily News, Yong Kim)
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NC-17 Content
"Most of you here know what it means when 100 corpses lie next to each other, .... To have endured this and at the same time to have remained a decent person ...." ~ Heinrich Himmler, OCT '43
Like Gosnell, Heinrich Himmler persuaded himself he was fighting a noble war. His 'final solution' argument is made today by Gosnell and others like him who mass-produce abortions as callously as one might kill and clean chickens in a factory.
Complaints against Gosnell
- 1989 and 1993 – cited by Pennsylvania Department of Health for having no nurses in the recovery room.[20]
- 1996 – censured and fined in both Pennsylvania and New York states, for employing unlicensed personnel.[20]
- Around 1996 – Pediatrician Dr Schwartz – the former head of adolescent services at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and as of 2010, Philadelphia’s health commissioner – testified that around 1996 or 1997, he had hand-delivered a letter of complaint about Gosnell's practice to the Secretary of Health’s office and stopped referring patients to the clinic, but received no response.[21]
- 2000 – Civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the children of Semika Shaw, who had called the clinic the day after an abortion to report heavy bleeding, and died 3 days later of a perforated uterus and a bloodstream infection. The case alleged that Gosnell had failed to tell her to return to the clinic or seek emergency medical care. It was settled out of court in 2002 for $900,000.[12][22]
- 2001 – Gosnell claimed to be providing children’s vaccines under a program administered by the Health Department’s Division of Disease Control, but was repeatedly suspended for failing to maintain logs and for storing vaccines in unsanitary and inappropriate refrigerators, and at improper temperatures.[23]
- 2001 – ex-employee Marcella Choung gave what the Grand Jury would later call "a detailed written complaint" to the Pennsylvania Department of State, one which she followed up with an interview in March 2002.[24]
- 2006 – Civil lawsuit filed by patient but dismissed as out of time. The complaint was that Gosnell had been unable to complete an abortion, but then apparently failed or refused to call paramedics or other clinical emergency personnel, after the patient had needed help. The patient reported, "I really felt like he was going to let me die."[16]
Forty-six lawsuits had been filed against Gosnell over some 32 years.[25] Observers claimed that there was a complete failure by Pennsylvania regulators who had overlooked other repeated concerns brought to their attention, including lack of trained staff, "barbaric" conditions, and a high level of illegal late-term abortions.[26]
2010 Drug Raid
Gosnell's clinic was raided on 18 February 2010 the FBI and state police after a months-long investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Philadelphia Police Department, and the State's Dangerous Drug-Offender Unit. The investigation had revealed the suspicious death of patient Karnamaya Mongar in 2009, which had in turn brought to light further information about unsanitary operations, use of untrained staff, and use of powerful drugs without proper medical supervision and control. Thus, when the February 2010 raid took place, staff from the Pennsylvania Department of State and Pennsylvania Department of Health also attended, as these issues were under their remit:[27]
When the team members entered the clinic, they were appalled, describing it to the Grand Jury as 'filthy,' 'deplorable,' 'disgusting,' 'very unsanitary, very outdated, horrendous,' and 'by far, the worst' that these experienced investigators had ever encountered. There was blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat was wandering through the facility, and there were cat feces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women scheduled for abortions were moaning in the waiting room or the recovery room, where they sat on dirty recliners covered with blood-stained blankets. All the women had been sedated by unlicensed staff – long before Gosnell arrived at the clinic – and staff members could not accurately state what medications or dosages they had administered to the waiting patients. Many of the medications in inventory were past their expiration dates… surgical procedure rooms were filthy and unsanitary… resembling 'a bad gas station restroom.' Instruments were not sterile. Equipment was rusty and outdated. Oxygen equipment was covered with dust, and had not been inspected. The same corroded suction tubing used for abortions was the only tubing available for oral airways if assistance for breathing was needed…"[28][F]etal remains [were] haphazardly stored throughout the clinic– in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers... Gosnell admitted to Detective Wood that at least 10 to 20 percent... were probably older than 24 weeks [the legal limit]... In some instances, surgical incisions had been made at the base of the fetal skulls. The investigators found a row of jars containing just the severed feet of fetuses. In the basement, they discovered medical waste piled high. The intact 19-week fetus delivered by Mrs. Mongar three months earlier was in a freezer. In all, the remains of 45 fetuses were recovered ... at least two of them, and probably three, had been viable."[28]
Gosnell's license to practice was suspended on 22 February 2010,[29] and these and other findings were presented to a Grand Jury on 4 May 2010. Public discussion focused on claims of unsanitary conditions and other unacceptable conditions at the practices. Media reports stated that furniture and blankets were stained with blood, freely roaming cats deposited their feces wherever they pleased, and that non-sterilized equipment was used and reused on patients.[30][31][32][33]
According to the grand jury report, patients were given labor-inducing drugs by staff who had no medical training. Once labor began, the patient would be placed on a toilet. After the fetus fell into the toilet, it would be fished out, so as not to clog the plumbing. In the recovery room, patients were seated on dirty recliners covered in blood-stained blankets.[34] Prosecutors alleged that Gosnell had not been certified in either gynecology or obstetrics.[25] The Grand Jury estimated that Gosnell's practice "took in $10,000 to $15,000 a night" additional to income from his exceedingly high level of prescriptions.[35]
According to the grand jury report, patients were given labor-inducing drugs by staff who had no medical training. Once labor began, the patient would be placed on a toilet. After the fetus fell into the toilet, it would be fished out, so as not to clog the plumbing. In the recovery room, patients were seated on dirty recliners covered in blood-stained blankets.[34] Prosecutors alleged that Gosnell had not been certified in either gynecology or obstetrics.[25] The Grand Jury estimated that Gosnell's practice "took in $10,000 to $15,000 a night" additional to income from his exceedingly high level of prescriptions.[35]
2011 Gosnell's Arrest
Gosnell was arrested on January 19, 2011, five days after the certification of the Grand Jury's report. He was charged with eight counts of murder.[36] Prosecutors alleged that he killed seven babies born alive by severing their spinal cords with scissors, and that he was also responsible for the death in 2009 of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old refugee from Bhutan,[37] who died in his care. Gosnell's wife, Pearl, and eight other suspects were also arrested in connection with the case.[16][37][38] The Drug Enforcement Administration, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Office of the Inspector General also sought a 23-count indictment charging Gosnell and seven members of his former staff with drug conspiracy, relating to the practice's illegally prescribing highly-addictive painkillers and sedatives outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.
- The third degree murder charge relates to Karnamaya Mongar; according to prosecutors, Gosnell's staff gave the 90-pound woman a lethal dose of anesthesia and pain killers.
- The seven other murder charges are all of first degree murder; they relate to babies, whom staff have testified they saw move or cry after complete birth, and whose deaths are alleged to have resulted from subsequent lethal action.
- Steven Massof, a clinic employee who pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2011, testified that he (Massof) had snipped the spines of more than 100 infants after they had been born alive, and that this was considered "standard procedure" at the clinic; a number of other employees had also testified to the same point.[41]
- The Grand Jury report states that "A medical expert with 43 years of experience in performing abortions was appalled. This expert told us, 'I’ve never heard of it [cutting the spinal cord] being done during an abortion'."[42]
The United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania also alleges that Gosnell's former office staff at Family and Women's Medical Society (WMS) ran a prescription "pill mill." From June 2008 through February 18, 2010, Gosnell allegedly engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise by writing and dispensing fraudulent prescriptions for thousands of pills of the frequently-abused tablets OxyContin, Percocet, and Xanax, and the frequently-abused syrups Phenergan and Promethazine with Codeine. Authorities further allege that Gosnell and his staff allowed customers to purchase multiple prescriptions under multiple names. Gosnell, with the assistance of his staff, is said to have distributed and dispensed more than 500,000 pills containing oxycodone; more than 400,000 pills containing alprazolam; and more than 19,000 ounces of cough syrup containing codeine.[43]
Gosnell's lawyer states that "Everybody's made him the butcher, this, that and the other thing without any trial, without anything being exposed to the public and everybody's found him guilty, that's not right".[44] He accused the government of a "lynching" and stated, "This is a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution of a doctor who's done nothing but give (back) to the poor and the people of West Philadelphia."[39]
Kermit Barron Gosnell, a physician in Philadelphia, ran an abortion clinic and was a prolific prescriber of Oxycontin. In 2011, Gosnell, alongside various co-defendant employees, was charged with eight counts of murder by gross medical malpractice, as well as 24 felony counts of illegal abortions, and charged with 227 counts of violating the informed consent law. The murder charges stemmed from a patient who died while under his care and seven newborns said to have been killed after being born alive.
2013 Conviction
In May 2013, Gosnell was convicted on three murder charges, 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating the informed consent law. After his conviction, Gosnell waived his right of appeal in exchange for an agreement not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole.[2]
Gosnell has been described as a serial killer, with ABC's Terry Moran saying "Kermit Gosnell is probably the most successful serial killer in the history of the world."[3][4][5][6] The charges represent only those few of his actions that were adequately evidenced for prosecution. The actual number of murdered children is unknown but reported by staff as "more than 100".
"We were faced with the question: what about the women and children," Himmler explained in 1943. He and others chose to kill them all, even the infants, lest they be troubling later. He insisted that he remained 'a decent person'. It's the same argument used today.
Looking back just forty years, the bloodiest period in human history, it is difficult to understand how such a large segment of humanity could choose in favor of generalized abortion despite the simple biological and moral questions involved. Genocide, legalized but still genocide.
