Prosecutors File Intention To Seek Death Penalty Against Abortion "Doctor" Gosnell

Prosecutors have filed papers with the intention of seeking the death penalty against Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia-area doctor who ran an abortion clinic that was straight out of a horror movie and who carried out illegal late-term abortions, committed infanticide by killing live-born babies, and killed several of the women who sought abortions at the clinic.

Prosecutors yesterday filed paperwork that enables them to seek the death penalty against Kermit Gosnell, the abortion doctor charged with murder for the deaths of one woman and seven viable babies born alive in his West Philadelphia clinic.

But three of Gosnell's staffers also accused of killing babies caught a break: Prosecutors filed for a 60-day extension to get more time to mull whether they'll seek executions for co-defendants Lynda Williams, Steven Massof and Adrienne Moton.

The extension suggests that they'll lean on the trio to get more evidence against Gosnell.

Prosecutors filed the notice of aggravating factors, noting that he's accused of multiple murders and that his alleged victims were younger than 12, Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore said.

Attorney Jack McMahon, who represents Gosnell, said that the death penalty "makes no sense."

His attorney will claim that just because Gosnell is old that he shouldn't be subjected to the death penalty, and while the cost of a death penalty case is expensive for the state, the seriousness of the charges do merit such consideration. Moreover, the court could still rule that he gets life in prison rather than the death penalty should it deem it the more appropriate punishment if found guilty.

Several of his employees are going to have to wait a while longer to find out if they too are going to be subject to criminal charges with a death penalty proviso.

Gosnell, who had claimed that he was impoverished, turns out to own multiple properties and is quite well off, including finding stashes of cash:

And when investigators in Philadelphia searched his massive, three-storey brick Philadelphia home they are alleged to have discovered $240,000 in cash and a gun in a filing cabinet in his 12-year-old daughter's bedroom.

This month’s grand jury report revealed that Gosnell earned $1.8 million a year from his illegal operations.

Gosnell continues to claim that he did nothing wrong and that he was merely providing critical health services to an underserved community.

The case highlights multiple failures at the state and local level to investigate and regulate abortion providers and to take steps to end Gosnell's career years earlier before he could have turned his offices into a house of horrors. One can only hope that the state of Pennsylvania takes action to improve the regulation of these clinics, improve oversight, and to improve the methods by which complaints can be investigated so that someone like Gosnell can't continue to act with impunity for years on end. After all, Gosnell's practice was shut down not after complaints about his illegal abortions, malpractice, and murder, but because the prosecutors executed warrants relating to Gosnell operating a pill-mill. It was in the course of carrying out that warrant that the investigators and prosecutors determined that Gosnell was operating outside the bounds of law and decency.

Then, there's the issue that Gosnell worked not only in Pennsylvania, but in Delaware. Several of his associates at an office in Delaware have been suspended by the Delaware authorities due to ongoing investigations into Gosnell's activities in that state.

Gosnell's Curious Reaction To Patient Deaths

It's impossible to know what the hell Kermit Gosnell was thinking when he was carrying out his sick and twisted take on providing abortions to poor and immigrant women in a Philadelphia "family planning center", but his reaction to the death of one of his patients is startling in its audacity.

Physician Kermit Barron Gosnell had an unusual reaction to the death of Karnamaya Mongar in November 2009. The next day, he applied to join the National Abortion Federation, whose membership is often seen as a badge of quality.

To prepare for a site visit, Gosnell and his wife, Pearl, frantically cleaned the facility, replacing bloody recliners and temporarily hiring a professional the clinic had long lacked: a nurse.

His failed effort to bluff his way through the application appalled prosecutors. But worse, they said, "he made no effort to address the grave deficiencies in his practice that had caused Karnamaya Mongar's death."

Rather than try to clean up his practice and cease performing illegal late term abortions - those in the third trimester that were illegal under Pennsylvania law, he made an cursory effort to join a professional group that would give him credibility where none existed.

The NAF refused him entry citing irreparable errors and problems. That should have been a red flag for anyone involved, but Gosnell preyed on his patients - knowing that they weren't sophisticated enough to know whether Gosnell was skilled or licensed to perform abortions and whether he was engaging in proper sanitary conditions.

That it was abundantly clear to investigators when they raided his office on unrelated pill mill charges that Gosnell did not give a rat's ass about sanitary conditions, or patient health beyond collecting the fee for the abortion procedures is obvious. What isn't obvious is how Gosnell was able to get away with this for so long.

Gosnell had an earlier run-in with health officials after carrying out a test of a new abortion device in the early 1970s, but no charges were filed. And as the years went on, his reputation fell in proportion to his need to court out-of-state patients for his practice:

In 1972, he played a prominent role in a scandal over an experimental abortion tool called "the super coil," designed for use in the second trimester.

California psychologist and activist Harvey Karman had developed the coil. Gosnell tested it on 15 poor women who had taken a bus from Chicago on Mother's Day weekend because they couldn't get abortions elsewhere.

Federal and city health officials later found that nine of the women had suffered serious complications, including a punctured uterus. One needed a hysterectomy.

Gosnell was not charged, but Karman spent two years in court battles with Philadelphia District Attorney Arlen Specter before getting cleared.

In his early years, Gosnell had a good reputation in part because he made house calls.

But he was also known for pushing the limits. His methadone clinic once employed 25 people, Edmonds said, before it unraveled.

State tax liens piled up against the clinic through the 1980s and 1990s, and it folded.

Gosnell also became more reckless in his abortion practice, which was hit by a $41,000 federal tax lien.

He couldn't get doctors to refer patients because of his declining reputation. So he increasingly relied on attracting women from out of state. He even provided a bed in the clinic for overnight stays, the grand jury report said.

And when the State Health Department did receive complaints about Gosnell, they closed the files without so much as carrying out an investigation - even when the patient involved died.

Gosnell carried out abortions that other clinics wouldn't touch - primarily because they were illegal. His was a case of a licensed abortionist carrying out illegal late-term abortions in conditions no better than the back-room abortions that pro-choice advocates contend would occur should abortions become illegal.

Will anyone in Pennsylvania heed the lessons to be learned from this case and make sure that abortion/family planning centers are adhering to the law and providing proper care to their patients?

Inexcusable

As investigators continue poring over the long and horror-filled record of Kermit Gosnell's abortion practice, the excuses and obfuscations by state officials are coming out in Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Corbett has called for an investigation into how the Pennsylvania Health Department and State Department failed to investigate and otherwise catch Gosnell for years on end. He's given a one-week deadline to get answers.

"I was flabbergasted to learn that the Department of Health did not think their authority to protect public health extended to clinics offering abortion services," Rendell, a former Philadelphia mayor and district attorney, said in a statement. " ... I immediately directed them to inspect these facilities. It was simply preposterous that the department took this position, ever."

Health inspectors sporadically inspected the Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia for 13 years after it opened in 1979. The clinic had not been inspected since 1993, according to a grand jury report this week. Authorities allege workers used unsanitary equipment to induce labor in women with late-term pregnancies, snipping babies' spines and keeping body parts in jars.

The report says state officials ignored horrific conditions during the terms of six governors and 10 Health secretaries. It details a gruesome litany of failures and refusals to uphold even basic public health guidelines and lays out a long list of regulatory failures.

A spokeswoman for Corbett said Thursday that all of Pennsylvania's 22 registered abortion providers were inspected in September and November.

The grand jury said the Health Department and other agencies — including the Department of State, which oversees the Board of Medicine — have allowed Gosnell's clinic to operate nearly unimpeded since the late 1970s. It was not closed until authorities raided it as part of a drug bust early last year.

The Health Department "decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all," the grand jury said.

The department has not commented on the report, referring inquiries to Corbett's office.

Health Department lawyers changed their opinions and advice "to suit the policy preferences of different governors," the report stated. The department dropped its policy of annual inspections in the mid-1990s under Gov. Tom Ridge, who supported abortion rights, it said. Ridge has not commented on the report.

A Health Department lawyer testified about a 1999 meeting of high-level state officials "at which a decision was made not to accept a recommendation to reinstitute regular inspections of abortion clinics," citing concern that routine inspections would lead to "less abortion facilities, less access to women to have an abortion."

Rendell said he "had no knowledge" of the policy. He said the department "never reached out to me to discuss what the policy should be."

Corbett said he discussed the grand jury's findings with Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, telling him that "there's been a fumble on this since 1979."

Complaints against Gosnell date back to 1983, and yet there was no state action to stop Gosnell from carrying out infanticide (killing babies born alive and later murdered), illegal late-term abortions, and butchering women left and right. The state Health Department's response? People die:

The report details a sweeping pattern of negligence, with no inspector stepping foot inside the clinic for more than 16 years. Even the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a Bhutanese refugee who died after a procedure in 2009, was ignored.

Janice Staloski, a Health Department official, declined to investigate the death, saying the department had no authority to do so, the report said. The department’s chief counsel, Christine Dutton, defended the agency’s actions to the grand jury, stating bluntly, “People die.”

Dutton's callous disregard for the state's obligation is astounding and shows an institutional disregard for the lives of those living in Pennsylvania. A thorough housecleaning must be carried out to deal with this crisis - and that's exactly what the Gosnell case has revealed.

Meanwhile, Delaware has "swiftly" suspended Gosnell's record since the Pennsylvania indictment was handed down. Sorry, but where was Delaware in checking to see whether Gosnell was properly accredited and operating in accordance with basic health and sanitary regulations? Gosnell maintained a practice in Delaware - working in an office there once a week.

Until at least 2009, he typically worked one day a week at Wilmington's Atlantic Women's Medical Services Inc. That year, the National Abortion Federation made the rare move to reject Gosnell's Philadelphia clinic as a member because it did not meet their standards and the deficiencies were not correctable, according to the grand jury. The federation did not report whatever it found to be objectionable to state officials, according to the grand jury report.

Yet, Delaware officials have an out that Pennsylvania officials don't. Delaware law apparently doesn't allow the Department of Health and Social Services to inspect abortion providers or any other medical doctors, according to agency spokesman Carl Kanefsky said Saturday, which is itself an amazing situation.

I find that absolutely astounding. These practices involve serious medical procedures that put lives in jeopardy if done incorrectly. It can lead to major complications and deaths, and yet the Delaware law doesn't permit inspections.

That has to change - and soon.

It's inexcusable that states do not have proper oversight of family health practices where abortions are carried out. People should be justifiably outraged over the failure of the state to carry out regular inspections that would have caught Gosnell's malfeasance years ago - before an investigation into an unrelated pill mill operation opened up the house of horrors to the light of day.

States across the country should reexamine their own inspection protocols for all health facilities to make sure that all facilities where medical procedures are carried out are regularly inspected and that procedures are in place to shut down those that are carrying out illegal procedures (such as Gosnell's late term abortions), operating in unsanitary conditions, and otherwise engaging in shoddy practices that put lives at risk.

Tales of Horror Continue Emerging In Gosnell Abortion Case; UPDATE: Bail Denied

New details continue emerging on the sick and twisted case of Kermit Gosnell. Victims say that they were scarred for life, and their harrowing tales highlight the malfeasance and evil that lurked in Gosnell's offices:

FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD Robyn Reid didn't want an abortion. But when her grandmother forcibly took her to an abortion clinic one wintry day in 1998, Reid figured she'd just tell the doctor her wishes and then sneak away.

Instead, Kermit Gosnell barked: "I don't have time for this!" He then ripped off her clothes, spanked her, wrestled her onto a dirty surgical stretcher, tied her flailing arms and legs down and pumped sedatives into her until she quit screaming and lost consciousness, she told the Daily News yesterday.

Nicole Gaither got an abortion from Gosnell in 2001. After four days, she said, the pain was so bad she could barely walk. She returned to the clinic, where, she said Gosnell blithely told her he'd left fetal remains in her.

"Stand up! It don't hurt that bad!" he yelled at her, she said, before suctioning - without any medication - her insides.

In 2001, Davida Johnson changed her mind about aborting her 6-month fetus after seeing Gosnell's dazed, bloodied patients in his recovery room, she said. But in the treatment room, Gosnell's staffers ignored her protests, smacked her, tied her arms down and sedated her into unconsciousness, she said. She awoke no longer pregnant.

Because of the stigma attached with abortion, some of these young women had no where to turn, and the state authorities were unresponsive.

As I noted yesterday, Gosnell's case would not have come to light except for an independent investigation into Gosnell operating a pill mill. It was when investigators searched his offices, that the horror show came to light.

Former employees said that Gosnell at least nominally complied with state notification requirements, but that by 2008 Gosnell was ignoring the rules, and was carrying out illegal late-term (3d trimester) abortions with no regard for the patient's lives.

The Inquirer's editorial is stinging in its rebuke of Gosnell and the state:

The grand jury said that a man who can only be described as a back-alley abortionist pulled in as much as $15,000 per night. His patients were mostly low-income, minority women who lacked health insurance. Many came from out of state.

If the charges are true, Gosnell and several former employees at his Women's Medical Society should have the book thrown at them. The doctor also is under federal investigation for an allegedly illegal prescription-drug operation.

It's even more disturbing that the state, which could have shut down the clinic or revoked Gosnell's medical license, ignored complaints repeatedly. Gosnell's clinic was inspected in 1989, 1992, and 1993. Deficiencies were found each time. Yet state evaluators reapproved it without requiring corrective action.

The state Health Department decided after 1993 to stop inspecting abortion clinics for "political reasons," the grand jury concluded. That occurred during the administration of Gov. Tom Ridge, a supporter of abortion rights.

As a result, nail salons in Pennsylvania received tougher government scrutiny than Gosnell's clinic.

The grand jury recommended that the state Health Department license abortion clinics, obviously a needed step. Abortion services are medical care, and providers should be held to the same standards as nonhospital, ambulatory surgical facilities.

Now Gosnell and several of his employees stand accused of multiple counts of murder, and the DA says that he likely committed hundreds of murders by delivering hundreds of babies alive, and then killing them in a ghastly, immoral and illegal manner to perform the late-term abortions.

UPDATE:
The judge denied Gosnell and his cohorts bail, which is entirely sensible considering the alleged crimes - multiple murders, and the fact that he amassed a significant fortune in carrying out those abortions.

Yet, he had the audacity to ask why he wasn't able to post bail. Moreover, he doesn't consider the late term abortions - illegal under then (and current) Pennsylvania law - or the delivery of live babies and killing them outside the womb - to be murder:

"Is there some cause to believe I'm a risk or might flee?" he asked District Judge Jane Rice.

Rice explained to Gosnell, 69, that there is no bail for murder - and he was facing eight counts of it.

"Is it possible you could explain the seven counts?" he asked, while on closed-circuit television from Police Headquarters. "I understand the one count because of the patient who died but not the others."

The others were for babies who were born alive and viable, well past the state law allowing abortions for the first 24 weeks, and whose spinal cords he allegedly cut with scissors.

Investigators Accidentally Uncovered Gosnell's House of Horrors

The sickening case of Kermit Gosnell just keeps getting worse. Every time you think this is as bad as it gets, some new revelation comes out that proves even worse. Not only did state regulators and investigators fail in their duty to protect women from this guy's sick actions, his house of horrors was discovered by accident. Investigators weren't looking into botched abortions when they finally visited his offices. They were looking into claims that he was running a "pill mill" there, giving out prescription medications to anyone who would pay. It's once they got inside that Gosnell's evil emerged:

Semiconscious, moaning women sat in dirty recliners and on bloodstained blankets. The air reeked of urine from the flea-infested cats permitted to roam the clinic. There was blood on the floor and cat feces on the stairs. One investigator likened the scene to "a bad gas-station restroom."

That was just the tip of the iceberg as the grand jury report notes as Gosnell allegedly murdered babies that were born alive during botched late term abortion procedures. Gosnell allegedly carried out abortions at all times during the pregnancy regardless of state law restrictions. He paid no attention to sanitary conditions and his patients suffered horribly and needlessly as unlicensed and unskilled assistants aided Gosnell in his his procedures.

State regulators failed to stop Gosnell for years. The grand jury report slams regulators across multiple state administrations and law enforcement agencies that should have done their due diligence to investigate multiple claims against Gosnell over the years.

Not only should the AMA and the individual specialty boards better police their own members, but the state department of healths/ licensing boards must do a better job weeding out the bad doctors.

They need to better investigate claims of malfeasance and take action in a prompt manner. Gosnell was able to practice for years on end without any state official reviewing his case files or even going to his offices to see the horrendous conditions for themselves. The state of Pennsylvania failed to protect these women from Gosnell botching abortion after abortion and putting lives in jeopardy - to say nothing of murdering those babies that were born alive after botched abortions.

Some states are moving ahead with online databases to review license statuses and disciplinary records, but that effort is limited should a doctor move around the country one step ahead of the regulatory agencies. A doctor in NJ could move over to PA or NY to continue practicing.

What's probably needed is a multistate compact that requires mandatory reporting and licensing issues to all states and allows states to coordinate their efforts to weed out bad doctors.

That would also help go to reduce the cost of health care since bad doctors are more likely to engage in medical malpractice and have complications arise from their procedures.

The District Attorney prosecuting the case, Seth Williams notes that the seven murder charges is probably only the tip of the iceberg and that Gosnell and his nine associates likely murdered hundreds:

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams charged Dr. Kermit Gosnell and nine associates with seven counts of murder involving babies, but said hundreds of others likely died in the squalid clinic that Gosnell ran from 1979 to 2010.

The defendants face first-degree murder in the cases of seven babies for which there is substantial evidence, Williams said. The babies were born alive and viable, he said.

"My comprehension of the English language can't adequately describe the barbaric nature of Dr. Gosnell," Williams said at a news conference.

Williams said he may seek the death penalty for Gosnell, 69, who with his associates was arrested on Wednesday.

Gosnell was charged with murder, infanticide, conspiracy, abortion at 24 or more weeks and other charges.

Pennsylvania law prohibits abortion after 24 weeks except to save the life of the mother or avoid serious health risk to her.

Philadelphia Doctor Arrested Over Murder of Patients and Botched Abortions

This story is wrong on several levels and indicates a failure of Pennsylvania medical officials and investigators to properly treat complaints about the doctor's malfeasance for years on end. If these claims are true, the doctor, Kermit Gosnell, should have been kicked out of the profession years ago before he could do any more harm to women. Prosecutors have finally indicted Gosnell on the murder of a female patient and seven babies that were born alive:

A Philadelphia abortion doctor has been charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a woman patient and seven babies that prosecutors say were born alive and then killed with scissors.

The charges against Dr. Kermit Gosnell follow a long grand jury investigation.

District Attorney Seth Williams said state regulators ignored complaints and failed to visit the clinic since 1993.

Williams said the women were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society, which was shut down last year.

Gosnell has been named in at least 10 malpractice suits, including one over the death of a woman who died of sepsis and a perforated uterus.

Pro life groups will cite this as a reason to make abortion illegal, and pro choice will cite this as a reason to keep it legal with better oversight - to prevent back room abortions that engage in unethical, illegal, or medical malpractice.

What this case seems to indicate is a state that was indifferent to complaints and that investigators/regulators did not even visit the clinic since 1993. This allowed the doctor to carry out abortions that put womens' lives at risk and carried out multiple botched abortions.

Making abortions illegal would increase the likelihood that women will visit doctors who botch abortions putting their lives in danger.

UPDATE:


The state's culpability in this case is startling in just how they failed the patients who were butchered by this doctor. The 281 page grand jury report is ghastly in its details and catalogs the state's failures nearly as much as Gosnell's physical acts. Ultimately, this case should lead to a major shift in the way the state oversees abortionists because Gosnell was butchering his patients:

Butcher of women
Dr. Gosnell didn’t just kill babies. He was also a deadly threat to mothers. Not every abortion could be completed by inducing labor and delivery. On these occasions, Gosnell would attempt to remove the fetus himself. The consequences were often calamitous – though that didn’t stop the doctor from trying to cover them up.
One woman, for example, was left lying in place for hours after Gosnell tore her cervix and colon while trying, unsuccessfully, to extract the fetus. Relatives who came to pick her up were refused entry into the building; they had to threaten to call the police.

They eventually found her inside, bleeding and incoherent, and transported her to the hospital, where doctors had to remove almost half a foot of her intestines.

On another occasion, Gosnell simply sent a patient home, after keeping her mother waiting for hours, without telling either of them that she still had fetal parts inside her. Gosnell insisted she was fine, even after signs of serious infection set in over the next several days. By the time her mother got her to the emergency room, she was unconscious and near death.

A nineteen-year-old girl was held for several hours after Gosnell punctured her uterus. As a result of the delay, she fell into shock from blood loss, and had to undergo a hysterectomy.

One patient went into convulsions during an abortion, fell off the procedure table, and hit her head on the floor. Gosnell wouldn’t call an ambulance, and wouldn’t let the woman’s companion leave the building so that he could call an ambulance.

Each one of those instances should have raised red flags with the authorities - at the hospitals that treated these patients after Gosnell's "procedures" and by law enforcement, but no steps were taken for years on end.

Thankfully someone finally did put Gosnell's bloody trail of malfeasance to an end by shutting down his clinic.

Getting back to the state's failures, the report sets out that the state purposefully turned a blind eye to Gosnell, because of decisions made by politicians going back to 1993:

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.

The only exception to this live-and-let-die policy was supposed to be for complaints dumped directly on the department’s doorstep. Those, at least, would be investigated. Except that there were complaints about Gosnell, repeatedly. Several different attorneys, representing women injured by Gosnell, contacted the department. A doctor from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia hand-delivered a complaint, advising the department that numerous patients he had referred for abortions came back from Gosnell with the same venereal disease. The medical examiner of Delaware County informed the department that Gosnell had performed an illegal abortion on a 14-year-old girl carrying a 30-week-old baby. And the department received official notice that a woman named Karnamaya Mongar had died at Gosnell’s hands.

Yet not one of these alarm bells – not even Mrs. Mongar’s death – prompted the department to look at Gosnell or the Women’s Medical Society. Only after the raid occurred, and the story hit the press, did the department choose to act. Suddenly there were no administrative, legal, or policy barriers; within weeks an order was issued to close the clinic. And as this grand jury investigation widened, department officials “lawyered up,” hiring a high-priced law firm to represent them at taxpayer expense. Had they spent as much effort on inspection as they did on attorneys, none of this would have happened to begin with.

But even this total abdication by the Department of Health might not have been fatal. Another agency with authority in the health field, the Pennsylvania Department of State, could have stopped Gosnell single-handedly. While the Department of Health regulates facilities, the Department of State, through its Board of Medicine, licenses and oversees individual physicians. Like their colleagues at Health, however, Department of State officials were repeatedly confronted with evidence about Gosnell, and repeatedly chose to do nothing.

Indeed, in many ways State had more damning information than anyone else.

As this case proceeds, the revelations about Gosnell's actions and the Pennsylvania's failure to act to stop him from butchering his patients are likely to become even more scandalous and heinous.

This report is a difficult read under the best of circumstances, and reads like something straight out of a horror movie.

Plastic bags and mineral water bottles holding aborted fetuses were found stashed in Dr. Gosnell’s clinic. Jars containing the severed feet of babies lined a shelf, the Philadelphia district attorney, Seth Williams, said in a statement.

Dr. Gosnell, a family practitioner who was not certified in obstetrics, performed late-term abortions, after 24 weeks, which are illegal, and employed staff members who were not trained medical professionals, including a teenage girl, prosecutors said. Nine of his employees were also charged.

“It is very important to remember that Dr. Gosnell is presumed innocent,” a lawyer for Dr. Gosnell, William J. Brennan, said. “I would hope there is not a rush to judgment and that he has an opportunity to review this very lengthy charging document.”

In the grand jury document, prosecutors called Dr. Gosnell’s clinic “a baby charnel house,” riddled with fetal remains and reeking of cat urine, with furniture and blankets stained with blood. Medical equipment was broken and supplies were reused.