The Philly holocaust (where pro-life and pro-choice agree)

Dr. Kermit Gosnell of the Philadelphia Women's Medical Society has been indicted for the murders of 7 infants and one woman. The Grand Jury has just released their report on the atrocities he committed against both women and babies. You may read the whole thing here.

Neither the report nor my synopsis below is for the faint of heart...but this appears to be one case where both pro-choice and pro-life advocates will stand shoulder to shoulder in their mutual disgust and revulsion.

Gosnell's standard method for abortions was to have the woman arrive during the day, pay for the procedure, receive drugs to minimize pain and induce labor. Dr. (I use the term lightly) Gosnell would then show up late in the evening to complete the procedure. Many women would deliver before he showed up...and these would be left on the floor or toilet waiting for his arrival. Finally if any infants were still moving, Dr. Gosnell would "ensure fetal demise" by jabbing scissors in the back of their necks and snipping their spinal cords. Then he would cut off their feet and store them in specimen jars in the event DNA testing was needed. The fetal remains were stored in overflowing refrigerators and freezers, but sometimes left in the open until the stench required the staff to dispose of. He's charged with the murder of seven viable newborns (but suspected of hundreds more).

His atrocities were not only to newborns, but to the women as well. The condition of his facility was abhorrent. Inoperable medical machines, "one-use" medical tools used repeatedly until they broke, cats roaming freely, unsanitized tools used with blood from earlier patients. Report mentions that one way he was caught was when other hospitals recognized that women who went to his facility often came out with a certain venereal diseases (caught from the medical tools and devices he used and reused). He routinely perforated women's uterus' and colons during the procedure as well as failed to completely evacuate the uterus. He's charged with the third-degree murder of one woman but his culpability in other deaths is also suspected.

What's equally egregious is the blind eye that the authorities turned to his practices. The report states that the Pennsylvania Department of Health deliberately chose not to enforce laws...They conducted sporadic inadequate inspections for 13 years and then none at all between 1993 and 2010. They failed to investigate even after the self-reported death of the woman that Gosnell is now charged with murder.

The state was “repeatedly confronted with evidence about Gosnell” – including the clinic’s unclean, unsterile conditions, unlicensed workers, unsupervised sedation, underage abortion patients, and over-prescribing of pain pills with high resale value on the street – “and repeatedly chose to do nothing.”

Even the National Abortion Federation did nothing despite the fact that the inspector wrote that Gosnell's clinic was “the worst abortion clinic she had ever inspected”.