The Kermit Gosnell Case

Gosnell initially scoffed at the idea he would ever be convicted of murder.

How 'Access To Choice' Ended Up Trumping Public Safety

Some observations after reading the Grand Jury report - which you can read yourself here: 

http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/PDFs/GrandJuryWomensMedical.pdf


1.  As incredible as this is going to sound, PA Dept. of Health [DOH] officials decided to stop regular inspections of the state's abortion clinics in 1993; then in 1999 they held a big meeting where they discussed whether or not to begin regular inspections again...and decided not to since they strongly suspected several clinics would NOT pass any inspections.  Since closing clinics would 'harm women's access to abortion', it was decided to leave these unsanitary, unsafe clinics alone and allow them to continue to operate.

This. Actually. Happened.  It's on page 9 of the Grand Jury's official report.  

But at least the department had been doing something up to that point, however
ineffectual. After 1993, even that pro forma effort came to an end. Not because of
administrative ennui, although there had been plenty. Instead, the Pennsylvania
Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. 

With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.

One of the DOH's own state lawyers - who was subsequently fired along with a lot of other people for this, by the way - testified to the grand jury about that 1999 meeting:  

http://www.businessinsider.com/kermit-gosnell-clinic-not-inspected-2013-4#ixzz2QGpovf4O

The grand jury report that lays out allegations against Gosnell has an entire section called "How did this go on so long?" The simple answer is politics. 

Pennsylvania's health department stopped routine inspections of abortion facilities in the state after Tom Ridge, a pro-choice Republican, became governor in 1995. 

Health department lawyers "changed their legal opinions and advice to suit the policy preferences of different governors," health department official Janet Staloski said in grand jury testimony. In this case, she said the state didn't want to be "putting a barrier up to women" who wanted abortions. 

In 1999, high-level Pennsylvania officials met to consider starting up regular inspections again but decided not to, state lawyer Kenneth Brody testified, according to the grand jury report. He told the grand jury that officials were concerns that abortion clinics wouldn't meet inspection standards and then there "would be less abortion facilities." 

The state's politics-driven policy continued until the gruesome allegations regarding Gosnell came to light.

"Choice" trumped public safety. Time and again, PA health & legal officials chose to look the other way and let a butcher stay in business.  Late term abortions have been illegal in America since 2003, and state law in PA forbid abortions being done after 6 months.  So the kind of abortions Gosnell was doing were illegal to begin with. 

2.  Even two women DYING from procedures performed by Gosnell was not enough to get PA officials to crack the door open and take a look into Gosnell's clinic.  This is a dereliction of duty beyond the pale.  

Karnamaya Mongar was killed by Gosnell in November, 2009

The only record of any inspections being done of Gosnell's clinic from 1993 until the FBI raid finally shuttered the clinic in 2010 is from a health worker looking into compliance with a child vaccine program. This health worker checking up on kids vaccines used everything but signal flags to tell her superiors things at Gosnell's clinics were not right.  She was ignored.  

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/04/14/PA-Dept-Health-Official-Tried-To-Help-Ignored-By-Superiors

It caused a huge state-wide scandal in PA when it was discovered that two women could actually die from an abortion "doctor's" bungling and it wouldn't even buy that abortion clinic a summary inspection.  

3.  Even after the second death in 2009, and numerous instances of women having to be rushed to emergency facilities after botched procedures at Gosnell's clinic, Gosnell was allowed to continue to operate.  It was an FBI raid investigating Gosnell's illegal prescription drug sales that finally exposed the horror of what was going on in his 'clinic'.  

Got that? Killing two women and maiming countless others since 1993 didn't even buy Kermit Gosnell an inspection, but rumors he was selling illegal prescription drugs got him raided by the FBI. 

Karnamaya Mongar died as a result of malpractice by Gosnell's clinic staff on November 19, 2009.  The FBI raid that finally ended the horror was held on February 18, 2010, a good 3 months after Mongar's death.  Gosnell was still in business, with the FBI finding, as the Grand Jury reports on page 20:  

......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.

3.  Kermit Gosnell did not 'fall through the cracks'.  

Gosnell was no 'back alley' abortionist. He was licensed by the State.

As the grand jury report makes clear, his abuses were brought to the attention of PA health officials repeatedly between 1993 and 2010.  And repeatedly, PA health officials made a decision to take no action.  When they stopped regular inspections in 1993 it was claimed the DOH would inspect clinics only when they received specific complaints.  Yet the fact the DOH received numerous complaints about Gosnell from 1993-2010 while taking no action demonstrates this 'policy' was bogus.  

4.  Gosnell's abortion 'procedure' wasn't really an abortion procedure.  

Unlike prostaglandin or D&C abortions, the two main late-term abortion techniques, Gonell's method ensured live births would take place.  What he was doing was he was sedating the women and then giving them labor-inducing drugs, forcing them to give premature birth.  

Inducing early labor in the 6th, 7th, and 8th month of gestation virtually assures some babies will exit the womb alive.  Gosnell's method for handling such cases was to take a pair of scissors and sever the baby's spinal cord at the neck.  

***WARNING****

GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW.  IF SEEING TWO OF THE ACTUAL INFANT MURDER VICTIMS OF KERMIT GOSNELL WOULD UPSET YOU, SKIM DOWN QUICKLY TO PASS OVER THE EVIDENCE. 

These pictures are disturbing.  For good reason have plenty of people discussed how this case has deeply affected them.  You will have to click on them to bring them up to full size. 

The result of an 'evacuation of the uterine contents' after Gosnell 'terminated the pregnancy'. 

Gosnell is charged by the State of Penn. with murdering this baby boy.  

Below are images from a 'dilation and curettage abortion

The difference between what Gosnell was doing with inducing early delivery vs.

a real abortion method such as Dilation & Curettage should be fairly obvious. 

5.  While the mainstream media is belatedly covering the Gosnell case, they are insisting on referring to the victims as 'fetuses'.  

This is incorrect.  The State of PA has correctly put Gosnell on trial for murder of babies, not 'fetuses'.  These babies were born, they were outside of the womb, and they were alive when they were killed by having their spinal cords cut.  Even according to many pro-choicer's convoluted 'inside womb a fetus, outside the womb alive a baby' this is murder, and the State is treating it as such. 

In fact, this is the real reason why the MSM was deliberately trying to 'overlook' the 'nonstory' of Gosnell up until this week. 

How many more Gosnells are out there, operating with impunity thus far because they knew they didn't have to worry about surprise inspections by state health officials? Is anybody out there REALLY looking for the next Gosnell?  Or like the now-fired PA DOH officials, are they part of the cult of choice that practically results in policy that means 'access to choice' trumps public safety? 

UPDATE: One might have been exposed in Delaware already due to 5 women having to be rushed to local hospitals since January of this year: 

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=9059172

Two former employees have come forward to blow the whistle to the local ABC affiliate.  They very much make it sound like Gosnell 2.0.  A key difference? This is a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.

UPDATE II:  Kermit Gosnell - Maiming & Injuring Women Since 1972!  James Taranto in the WSJ had a long column on how we got from Roe to Gosnell that is well worth a read; 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324030704578422883948238160.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

This particular passage made for especially chilling reading: 

As a long-time pro-life advocate, I've known for years the only real effect Roe v. Wade had on back alley abortionists was to allow those quacks to move from the back alley to hang their shingle on Main St. and get a license from the State to do what they'd already been doing.  The idea that legalization of abortion drove the back alley butchers out of business is one of the most cherished illusions of the Progressive movement.    

UPDATE III:  After a week of testimony at the Gosnell trial about dead babies being dropped into toilets and flushed into Philadelphia's sewage system, this was sort of inevitable. 

Planned Parenthood & NARAL weigh in: 'By Golly, If There's Anything The Gosnell Case Proves, It's That Abortion Clinics In America Need FEWER Inspections And Less Oversight From The State.

Yes.  Really. They said this.  

http://weaselzippers.us/2013/04/22/planned-parenthood-naral-abortionist-monster-kermit-gosnell-proves-we-need-fewer-restrictions-on-abortion-clinics/