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Unsanitary conditions? Unqualified personnel performing medical procedures? Desperate women paying huge amounts to end an unwanted pregnancy? Women dying from botched abortions? Welcome to a glimpse of the world before Roe v. Wade.

This is horrific. However, IMO it isn’t about abortion so much as about a man in a position of authority preying on what sounds like vulnerable and desperate women to line his own pockets.

That he was able to use the offer of abortion services to do so is a sad commentary on the state and availability of reproductive services, including legal abortion, and education.

  By PATRICK WALTERS and MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press
WEST PHILADELPHIA – January 19, 2011 (WPVI) — A doctor whose abortion clinic was described as a filthy, foul-smelling “house of horrors” that was overlooked by regulators for years was charged Wednesday with murder, accused of delivering seven babies alive and then using scissors to kill them.

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Dr. Kermit Gosnell was also charged with murder in the death of a woman who suffered an overdose of painkillers while awaiting an abortion.

In a nearly 300-page grand jury report filled with ghastly, stomach-turning detail, prosecutors said Pennsylvania regulators ignored complaints of barbaric conditions at Gosnell’s clinic, which catered to poor, immigrant and minority women in the city’s impoverished West Philadelphia section.

Prosecutors called the case a “complete regulatory collapse.” “Pennsylvania is not a Third World country,” the district attorney’s office declared in the report. “There were several oversight agencies that stumbled upon and should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago.”

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Gosnell, 69, was arrested and charged with eight counts of murder in all. Nine of Gosnell’s employees – including his wife, a cosmetologist who authorities say performed abortions – also were charged.
Prosecutors said Gosnell made millions of dollars over three decades performing thousands of dangerous abortions, many of them illegal late-term procedures. His clinic had no trained nurses or medical staff other than Gosnell, a family physician not certified in obstetrics or gynecology, prosecutors said.

At least two women died from the procedures, while scores more suffered perforated bowels, cervixes and uteruses, authorities said.

Under Pennsylvania law, abortions are illegal after 24 weeks of pregnancy, or just under six months, and most doctors won’t perform them after 20 weeks because of the risks, prosecutors said.

In a typical late-term abortion, the fetus is dismembered in the uterus and then removed in pieces. That is more common than the procedure opponents call “partial-birth abortion,” in which the fetus is partially extracted before being destroyed. Prosecutors said Gosnell instead delivered many of the babies alive.

He “induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord,” District Attorney Seth Williams said. Gosnell referred to it as “snipping,” prosecutors said.

Prosecutors estimated Gosnell ended hundreds of pregnancies by cutting the spinal cords, but they said they couldn’t prosecute more cases because he destroyed files.

“These killings became so routine that no one could put an exact number on them,” the grand jury report said. “They were considered ‘standard procedure.”‘

Defense attorney William J. Brennan, who represented Gosnell during the investigation, said: “Obviously, these allegations are very, very serious.”

The grand jury report came out a day after new Republican Gov. Tom Corbett took office. Spokesman Kevin Harley pledged that Corbett’s administration, through his new health secretary, would do more to oversee such clinics.

“What needs to be done is regulators, whether on the local or state or federal level, need to properly regulate, inspect and do their jobs,” Harley said. “The safety of our citizens should be first and foremost.”

Authorities raided Gosnell’s clinic early last year in search of drug violations and stumbled upon “a house of horrors,” Williams said. Bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses “were scattered throughout the building,” the district attorney said. “There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose.”

Prosecutors said the place reeked of cat urine because of the animals that were allowed to roam freely, furniture and blankets were stained with blood, instruments were not properly sterilized, and disposable medical supplies were used over and over.

Gosnell didn’t advertise, but word got around. Women came from across the city, state and region for illegal late-term abortions, authorities said. They paid $325 for first-trimester abortions and $1,600 to $3,000 for abortions up to 30 weeks. The clinic took in $10,000 to $15,000 a day, authorities said.

“People knew near and far that if you needed a late-term abortion you could go see Dr. Gosnell,” Williams said. White women from the suburbs were ushered into a separate, slightly cleaner area because Gosnell believed they were more likely to file complaints, Williams said.

Few if any of the sedated patients knew their babies had been delivered alive and then killed, prosecutors said. Many were first-time mothers who were told they were 24 weeks pregnant, even if they were much further along, authorities said.

Prosecutors said Gosnell falsified the ultrasound examinations that determine how far along a pregnancy is, teaching his staff to hold the probe in such a way that the fetus would look smaller. Gosnell sometimes joked about the babies, saying one was so large he could “walk me to the bus stop,” according to the report.

State regulators ignored complaints about Gosnell and the 46 lawsuits filed against him, and made just five annual inspections, most satisfactory, since the clinic opened in 1979, authorities said. The inspections stopped completely in 1993 because of what prosecutors said was the pro-abortion rights attitude that set in after Democratic Gov. Robert Casey, an abortion foe, left office.

Williams accused state Health Department officials of “utter disregard” for the safety of women undergoing abortion, and said the testimony of agency officials “enraged” the grand jury. But he said he could find no criminal offenses with which they could be charged, in part because too much time has elapsed.

The state’s reluctance to investigate, under several administrations, may stem partly from the sensitivity of the abortion debate, Williams said. Nonetheless, he called Gosnell’s conduct a clear case of murder.

(from the local ABC affiliate)

uhm, yeah…I have to STRONGLY agree with Albertamom…I guess for ultra-lib feminists its ALWAYS about reproductive rights and that trumps all else…sickening!

I have to agree with KD. It’s coming out that this “doctor” routinely lied to women about how big or developed their babies were, how the abortion would be performed and in the case of a woman bringing in her 28 weeks pregnant 14-year-old daughter, how far along the pregnancy was.

Also, the flip side of Jen B’s comment is horrifying, too—-how many of the people in charge who should’ve stopped Gosnell’s sadistic, exploitative business sooner hesitated out of fear of seeming anti-abortion?

I obviously don’t think any of us can boil this story down either way to say the answer is simply, “This man was preying on poor people” and/or “These women are horrible.” This story is about murder, yes, but it is also about late-term abortion. It would be improper to deny that. Personally, I would never abort after 12 weeks. We’ve all been pregnant. If I’m 24 weeks in, is a doctor really going to be able to convince me I’m only in my first trimester? Could it happen? Yes. Time and time again? I doubt it. By saying that you’re presuming that all of the women who went to him were dumb and not responsible for their choices and that’s just not fair. One woman goes and gets a viable fetus killed, maybe. 5, 10. But not hundreds. Someone had to know something was up.

This is also a story about how the police, FBI and other regulatory bodies failed these women – and all of us.

I totally agree, starsitter.

I gotta say, I’m pro-choice myself, but this guy is a murderer. If he could joke about it, he may even be a sociopath. What he did was not abortion, it was killing live babies. My own kids were born at 26 1/2 weeks, and needed no time in the NICU. If it is a viable child it is not abortion. I’m not in favor of late term abortions without medical cause.

Linda – he called himself that, and did perform some legit abortions from what I understand. He’s being referred to that way everywhere in the media.

This guy couldn’t perform a “legit” abortion, reports say he wasn’t a certified OB. I agree that the “abortion doctor” title is unfortunate spin. The title “Plastic Surgeon” isn’t given to people illegally practicing plastic surgery, nor do we call someone impersonating a police officer a “Cop.”

You know, on further reflection, I’m starting to wonder exactly why the pro-choice movement is so pissed off about this. What this man did to the babies/fetuses is no different than what any late-term abortion provider does to the child *except for the fact* that he delivered it first. Right? It’s not as if abortionists give the fetus anesthesia in utero during an abortion, whether it’s the D&E (or D&C? can’t remember) or partial birth. What’s the difference as to whether the creature is ripped apart in utero, or ex utero? It’s an honest question. I can understand why pro-choicers are mad about him lying to women, or about the unsanitary conditions, or about his “museum of horrors” and apparent sociopathic disregard for the life he was taking (“this one’s big enough to walk me to the bus”), but are any pro-choicers actually upset about the procedure and its end result? And if so, how do you/they reconcile this with a woman’s “right to choose”? He’s put a horrible face on the word “abortion” in the public’s mind, but what he did is, it seems to me, the truth of what abortion is: A child brutally killed on its mother’s and doctor’s watch.

Here’s a link to a blogger who published accounts of reader’s experiences of late term abortions. Read the accounts. Keep in mind that there were three doctors in all of the United States who provided legal late term abortions. Then Dr. George Tiller was murdered. Now there are two. Read the accounts. All of them, if you are not a coward. Then come back here and say how horrifying late term abortion is. Or maybe the situations these women and their families are in is horrifying.
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/its-so-personal-the-roundup.html

@Chi Laura: Some pro choicers believe that life, personhood and legal rights begins when the fetus exits the woman’s body. That is why these cases are seen as murder and not abortions. Once the fetus is delivered it does not present any risk to the woman’s body, health o life, and that is why it is awarded the full rights of personhood.
If my last pregnancy had turned up positive results for genetic anomalies via amniocentesis results, I would have had the D & E at around19 – 20 wks. The difference between the D & E and intact D & E (erroneously referred to as PBA) is the safety factor to the woman more than anything.

Born children can be cared for by any number of people outside of the mother. They do not present the same physiological risks to her health and life.
All of these PC beliefs may be bullshit to you, but to me it is total bullshit that ANYONE outside of me, gets ANY say whatsoever about my body- including the contents of its womb. No one else was born into this body, no one else will assume all of the short and long term risks inherent in either gestation and childbirth or abortion, and no one else lives in it until I die. Therefore, it’s no one elses’ business what health care choices I make for it. My rights are not subrogated to those of a fetus. Or embryo, zygote, blastocyst.

Friends, it’s an expression. Obviously I am horrified.

I hear you, but the point is pretty clear. Let’s not get mired down in semantics. What this guy did does set abortion rights back, as does anyone who wants to get a late-term abortion that’s not medically recommended. I read all of the accounts Scorpio suggested – all of those abortions were due to severe birth defects, possible death of the mother, etc. etc. In cases like that, it’s completely understandable to want to terminate a life that will only be even more devastating should the child be delivered or one that will kill the mother in the process. However, I can only assume that the women who went to get what were ostensibly back-alley, late-term abortions in this case hadn’t had much in the way of pre-natal care and were not terminating because of medical reasons. Which to me makes their decisions less honorable. Those are my feelings. The bottom line is, tho, this story is so complex and awful, it’s silly for any of us to try to decide what the “worst” part is. One aspect of it is worse than the next, and they all cycle around to one another. I’m sure you can see that.

Sure. I hear that. He’s obviously mentally ill, too. I know what it’s like to be desperate, but where do we draw the line of sympathy? I don’t know.

We don’t know anything about the women who went to Gosnell. I would be fascinated to hear their accounts. It would also be interesting to see if the prosecution has documentation about the health of the murdered fetuses, ie if they had medical problems or not. Maybe that will be revealed in time.

No one’s trying to tell you what to do with your body, Goddess, at least not directly. Just what *not* to do to the child inside it.

Agree with Gretchen. I hesitate to call this guy “mentally ill,” and certainly not in the way of “not guilty by reason of mental defect.” Sociopath is a far cry from mental retardation. This man is an evil man, a criminal, a menace to society. Some people are just BAD, no further explanation needed.

@ChiLaura
- there is no “child” until birth. And a fetus doesn’t have rights that subrogate the woman’s.

I was pregnant with identical twin boys who because of placental complications were at extreme risk for abnormalities, premature birth and death. An abortion was offered to us (at over 21 weeks). We refused believing our boys’ lives had purpose no matter how difficult or short they were to be. They were born very prematurely and died a short time later.

@ChiLaura – Thanks for all your comments.

@Goddess – I realise “there is no ‘child’ until birth” legally. And that legally a fetus has no rights unless the mother deems it to. I question why a living being who has its own individual human genetic makeup, its own eye colour, hair colour, brain and beating heart only has rights if I as a mother decide it does. Ethically this is so arbitrary. How I’m feeling about my pregnancy, for whatever reason, determines whether that fetus has any rights at all. I do not deserve or desire that power over another living human being.