Multiple Newborns - Dr. Kermit Gosnell's "House of Horrors" - Philadelphia PA

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Cops: Pa. abortion doc killed 7 babies with scissors outside womb

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.

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."

CLICK HERE to read the grand jury findings and the full grand jury report...

"Pennsylvania is not a Third World country," the district attorney's office declared in the report. "There were several oversight agencies that stumbled uponband should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago."

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 rocedure 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 art because too much time has elapsed.

"These officials were far more protective of themselves when they testified before the grand jury. Even (Health Department) lawyers, including the chief counsel, brought private attorneys with them — presumably at government expense," the report said.

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. "A doctor who with scissors cuts into the necks, severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies who would survive with proper medical attention commits murder under the law," he said. "Regardless of one's feelings about abortion, whatever one's beliefs, that is the law."

Four clinic employees were also charged with murder, and five more, including Gosnell's wife, Pearl, with conspiracy, drug and other crimes. All were in custody. Gosnell's wife performed extremely late-term abortions on Sundays, the report said.

One of the murder charges against Gosnell involves a woman seeking an abortion, Karnamaya Mongar, who authorities said died in 2009 because she was given too much of the painkiller Demerol and other drugs. Gosnell wasn't at the clinic at the time. His staff administered the drugs repeatedly as they waited for him to arrive at night, as was his custom, the grand jury found.

Mongar and her husband, Ash, had fled their native Bhutan and spent nearly 20 years in camps in Nepal. They had three children. A man who answered the phone Wednesday at a listing for Ash Mongar in Virginia did not speak English, while their daughter did not immediately return a message.

The malpractice suits filed against Gosnell include one over the death of a 22-year-old Philadelphia woman, a mother of two, who died of a bloodstream infection and a perforated uterus in 2000. Gosnell sometimes sewed up such injuries without telling the women about the complications, prosecutors said.

Gosnell earned his medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and is board certified in family practice. He started, but did not finish, a residency in obstetrics-gynecology, authorities said.

Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore said: "He does not know how to do an abortion. Once he got them there, he saw dollar signs and did abortions that other people wouldn't do."

Abortion doctor arraigned on 8 murder charges

Jan. 21, 2011

Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, 69, a family practitioner with no certification in gynecology or obstetrics, was arraigned Thursday in Pennsylvania on eight counts of murder in the deaths of seven babies and one patient.

Nine employees also have been charged. Gosnell asked in court that seven of the murder charges be explained and raised his eyebrows as Magistrate Jane Rice detailed the allegations of the baby deaths. A grand jury report described the killings of live-born, late-term babies by severing their spinal cords with scissors.

Gosnell was denied bail, and his next court appearance is set for February.

Posted on Fri, Jan. 21, 2011

Abortion doctor surprised by denial of bail



Kermit Gosnell: Held without bail on murder charges

Abortion doc Kermit Gosnell, who is accused of killing one patient and seven infants at his West Philadelphia clinic, was surprised when he was denied bail at his arraignment yesterday. "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. Arraigned along with Gosnell were eight of his nine co-defendants, former staffers who include his wife, Pearl, and his sister-in-law. The ninth, Steven Massof, was awaiting arraignment last night. Adrienne Moten and Lynda Williams, who allegedly ssisted Gosnell at the Women's Medical Society, also were arraigned on murder charges and held without bail. The other defendants included Tina Baldwin, Madlline Joe, Elizabeth Hampton, Eileen O'Neil and Sherry West.

Bail ranged from $150,000 and to $2 million.Gosnell was calm and looked grandfatherly in a teal button-down shirt. Aside from slumping in his chair, he reacted only when he seemed confused by the narcotics charges against him and the numerous counts of murder. Most of the defendants remained calm and said little, except for Hampton, 51, Gosnell's sister-in-law, who appeared before the camera, sobbing. "Please don't start with the tears," the judge said.

Family members of only one defendant, Baldwin, showed up in court for the arraignments. Baldwin, whose bail was set the lowest at $150,000, allegedly administered anesthesia without a license and let her 15-year-old daughter, who also worked there, do the same, prosecutors said. Baldwin's husband, Michael, said she didn't know about the alleged atrocities going on at the clinic. He said his wife told him that investigators would go in and out of the building and never told her anything was wrong. "She thought that's how an office was supposed to be run," he said.

After his wife testified before the grand jury, she didn't think she would be charged, he said. That all changed at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, when 20 cops came to their home and took his wife into custody, Michael Baldwin said.

Kermit Gosnell Abortion Clinic Was Not Inspected For 17 Years

01/23/11

While this week's indictment involving a grisly abortion mill in Philadelphia has shocked many the grand jury's nearly 300-page report also contains a surprising and little-noted revelation: In the mid-1990s, the administration of Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge, a pro-choice Republican, ended regular inspections of abortion clinics--a policy that continued until just last year.

According to the grand jury report [2][PDF] released this week by Philadelphia prosecutors, Pennsylvania health officials deliberately chose not to enforce laws to ensure that abortion clinics provide the same level of care as other medical service providers.The District Attorney's office this week charged an abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell, with murder and infanticide. Nine other workers at the abortion clinic, the Women's Medical Society, also face charges. According to the prosecutors, Gosnell and his associates not only broke state law by performing abortions after 24 weeks--they also killed live babies by stabbing them with scissors and cutting their spinal cords. Law enforcement officials found blood-stained furniture, unsterilized instruments and fetal remains scattered about the clinic.

At least one woman, a refugee from Nepal, had died under Gosnell's care after being given repeated injections of a dangerous sedative.

Prosecutors said Gosnell made millions from treating and sometimes maiming his patients, who were mostly low-income, minority women [3].But perhaps most frightening of all? The atrocities were discovered by accident [4], as the Philadelphia Inquirer points out. Warnings--from patients and their attorneys, a doctor at a Philadelphia hospital, women's health groups, pro-choice groups, and even an employee of the
Philadelphia Department of Public Health--failed to prompt state and
local authorities to investigate or take action against the clinic.

The grand jury report said that one look at the place would have detected the problems, but the Pennsylvania Department of Health hadn't inspected the place since 1993. Here's the grand jury report, in surprisingly strong language: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.

"Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety," the report states. "Without regular inspections, providers like Gosnell continue to operate; unlawful and dangerous third-trimester abortions go undetected; and many women, especially poor women, suffer."

According to the report, the policy change occurred after 1993 when attorneys under the administration of then-governor Tom Ridge "interpreted the same regulations that had permitted annual inspections for years to no longer authorize those inspections." Thereafter, only inspections triggered by complaints were authorized. The report noted that Department of Public Health officials reinstituted regular inspections of abortion clinics in February 2010. Ed Rendell, the Pennsylvania Democrat whose second term as governor ended last week, released a statement saying he was "flabbergasted [5]" when he learned of the department's lax scrutiny of abortion clinics and immediately ordered increased inspections, the Associated Press reported. Still, the earlier policy had its defenders. According to the grand jury report, when the Department of Health's chief lawyer was asked about it, she responded, "People die."

Given that between 30,000 to 40,000 abortions [6] are performed each year Pennsylvania, it's unclear how many women have been put at risk in the almost two decades that regulators suspended regular inspections of abortion clinics in Pennsylvania. The grand jury report does note that many organizations perform safe abortion procedures and have high standards of care, but that's "no thanks to the Pennsylvania Department of Health."

The state's Department of Health did not comment on the matter but said it would forward our request on to the governor's press office. We've also left a message with Tom Ridge's spokeswoman. We'll update if they respond.

‘Scores’ of victims of ‘House of Horrors’ abortionist tell of forced abortions, lifelong injuries

Wed Jan 26, 2011 15:01 EST
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, January 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com)
- “Scores” of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s victims are
coming forward after his arrest last week, says Pennsylvania’s District
Attorney. Many women are detailing the horrid atrocities in the media,
with some alleging that he even forced them to abort their child.

One woman, Robyn Reid, told ABC News that she had planned to sneak
away when her grandmother brought the then-three-month-pregnant
15-year-old to Gosnell’s facility on January 31, 1998. “When I said no,
the doctor got upset and he ended up taking my clothes off, hitting me,
my legs were tied to the stirrups,” she said.

“I was fully dressed. He actually managed to get all of my clothes
off and tie me down to the medical bed,” she continued. “I just remember
my very last thought ... looking up at the light and thinking, ‘Don’t
fall asleep.’”

In the midst of the 30-minute struggle, she says the abortionist
assured her by saying, “This is the same care that I would give to my
own daughter.”

Reid said the drugs Gosnell gave her were so strong they knocked her
out for 12 hours, and she was carried home asleep by her mother and
aunt. “What would you give somebody that small that would knock me out
for 12 hours? What if I had died?” she asked.

Gosnell, 69, was arrested last Wednesday for eight counts of murder,
which included charges for killing seven babies that were born alive and
one count for the botched-abortion death of 41-year-old Nepalese
refugee Karnamaya Mongar.

His arrest followed the release of a 281-page photograph-laden Grand Jury Report
that detailed Gosnell’s bone-chilling practices, including the killing
of what clinic workers testified were “hundreds” of living, breathing
newborn children by severing their spinal cords or slitting their necks.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to do this,’ and he smacked me. They tied my
hands and arms down and gave me more medication,” Davida Johnson, who
went to Gosnell in 2001, told The Associated Press.

Within a few months, the then-21-year-old began suffering
gynecological issues, and learned she had contracted a venereal
disease. She said she now suffers from an unidentified lifelong
illness, and has since had four miscarriages.

Commenting on Gosnell’s horrid treatment of the babies, Johnson
asked, “Did he do that to mine? Did he stab him in the neck? Because I
was out of it. I don’t know what he did to my baby.”

Gosnell has faced 46 civil lawsuits in the past, the Pennsylvania
District Attorney’s office told ABCNews, and more and more victims are
coming forward. “Phones are ringing off the hook. There are scores of
women,” District Attorney Christine Wechsler said.

LaToya Ransome told
CNN that her abortion in July 2007 by Gosnell left her disabled. “It
was the utensils that he used ... to do the abortion,” she said. “They
wasn’t sterilized, so it caused me to get an infection called
endocarditis.”

“By August 31, 2007 I had open heart surgery,” she said. “October the
first of 2007 I was disabled, meaning I couldn’t do nothing for myself,
take care of my son, take care of myself, feed myself, clothe myself,
none of that.”

“He’s crazy and he’s careless. He had ... no type of feelings of what he’s doing to these women and these babies,” she added.

Nicole Gaither, 38, told ABC News that she was in excruciating pain
and could hardly sit down after Gosnell aborted her baby at five-months
gestation in 2001. It turned out that the abortionist had left parts of
her baby’s body inside her. When she went back, he sucked the remains
out without giving her anesthesia. Afterward he said, “Stand up, you
aren’t in that much pain.”

“I was just laying on the table and crying and I just asked the Lord to get me through it,” she said.

The Grand Jury report slammed the Pennsylvania Department of Health
and other state government agencies for turning a blind eye to Gosnell’s
practices, despite their knowledge of complaints and lawsuits against
the abortionist.

According to the Grand Jury, the state ceased inspecting abortion
facilities in 1995 under the administration of former Pennsylvania
Governor Tom Ridge, a pro-abortion Catholic. The inspections were only
resumed in 2010 by then-Governor Ed Rendell.

“The Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for
political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all,” said the
grand jury. “With the change of administration from Governor [Robert]
Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be
‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions … Even nail salons in
Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety.”

The report also implicated the National Abortion Federation, which
failed to report him to authorities after observing numerous violations
during an evaluation as part of a failed membership application.

Authorities only discovered Gosnell’s gruesome thirty-year abortion operation when they raided his facility for a drug bust.

Today the pro-life activist organization Operation Rescue emphasized
that Gosnell’s abortion facility is merely one of the few “house of
horrors” to be caught, as they released a report exposing Gosnell’s
connection to the Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The report, says the group, reveals a “web of death” between Gosnell,
co-arrestee Eileen O’Neill, and Delta Clinic’s owner Leroy Brinkley,
who also owns the Atlantic Women’s Services abortion facility in
Wilmington, Delaware. Gosnell was employed at Atlantic Women’s Services
one day per week, and O’Neill, who pretended to be a licensed
physician, was employed by both Gosnell and Brinkley. She was arrested
along with Gosnell last week.

The report also implicates again the National Abortion Federation,
which claims Brinkley’s Louisiana and Delaware facilities as proud
members.

A group of attorneys has threatened to sue the Louisiana Department
of Health and Hospitals if it does not immediately order the Delta
Clinic closed for violations that mirror squalid conditions found at
Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion mill.

“Certainly Gosnell’s mill is not the only ‘house of horrors’ in
operation. He is just one of the few that has been caught,” said
Operation Rescue President Troy Newman. “Horrific conditions and
practices exist at most abortion clinics, and in fact, we have yet to
find even one that obeys all the laws.

“However, we can take hope in the fact that political conditions that
have ignored and covered up for abortion abuses are changing and the
arrests in Philadelphia of Gosnell’s band of criminals are a testament
to that,” he added. “However, there is still a very long way to go, as
this report shows.”

Gov. Tom Corbett's decisive action to tighten state oversight of
abortion clinics is a necessary and proper response to officials'
inaction linked to two women's deaths at a Philadelphia clinic and
resulting homicide charges against its operator and two of his former
aides.

Lapses in inspections, reporting and enforcement in the Health and
State departments regarding Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his clinic weren't
"government run amok"; they were "government not running at all," Mr.
Corbett said in announcing necessary changes.

Six employees of those departments have resigned or been fired and
action is pending against eight other state employees removed from
clinic oversight while an investigation continues.

Appallingly, the Health Department last inspected Dr. Gosnell's
clinic in 1993 and the Department of State ignored complaints about him.
Among steps Corbett ordered are unannounced random annual inspections
of more than 20 clinics, daily fines up to $1,000 for not reporting
serious incidents, quick reviews of such incidents, cross-checking of
more detailed State reports, and better coordination between State and
Health.

The Legislature would be wise to make Corbett's orders law and
thereby permanent. Oversight must never again be as slipshod as it was
in Gosnell's case.

Pa. governor fires workers after abortion scandal

Sunday, Feb. 20, 2011

Some state employees have been fired and two agencies have overhauled their regulations in the wake of allegations that a doctor performed illegal abortions that killed a patient and viable infants, Gov. Tom Corbett announced Tuesday.

"It happened because people weren't doing their jobs, plain and simple," Corbett said.

Corbett said that four attorneys and two supervisors at the departments of Health and State were either fired or resigned on Friday and that eight other employees involved in the internal investigation remain on the state payroll. Others had previously resigned, he said.

"This doesn't even rise to the level of government run amok," Corbett said at a Capitol news conference at which he described his administration's actions in the month since Dr. Kermit Gosnell and eight employees of his West Philadelphia clinic were charged criminally. "It was government not running at all. To call this unacceptable doesn't say enough. It's despicable."

Corbett said the Department of State, which licenses medical professionals, has changed how it handles complaints and now requires more detailed reports. It also will train lawyers on investigative procedures, rules and regulations, and on how to prosecute complaints, he said.

At the Department of Health, which was not performing systematic checks of the state's abortion clinics for more than a decade before Gosnell's clinic was raided last year, yearly inspections are now mandatory, and the results will be posted on the state website.

"Laws are already on the books that should have prevented this situation," Corbett said. "The correction needs to take place inside the two agencies assigned to oversee them, so my administration has drawn up a set of guidelines or protocols."

Gosnell was charged last month with killing seven babies born alive and with the death of a 41-year-old refugee after a botched abortion at the clinic, which prosecutors have called a drug mill by day and abortion mill by night. The refugee, Karnamaya Mongar, had fled Bhutan and had survived nearly 20 years in camps in Nepal. She was referred to Gosnell by a clinic in Virginia that didn't do second-trimester abortions.

Prosecutors said hundreds more babies died in Gosnell's clinic, and District Attorney Seth Williams called it a "house of horrors."

A grand jury report said Gosnell "murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors."Gosnell, at his arraignment, said he did not understand why he was being charged with eight counts of murder. In an interview with the Philadelphia Daily News after his clinic was raided, he described himself as someone who wanted to serve the poor and minorities in the neighborhood where he grew up and raised his six children, who include a doctor and a college professor.

An attorney who filed a malpractice lawsuit for Mongar's family said the governor's moves are a step in the right
direction, though they come "too late for my client and for many others."

"I do applaud his efforts because they certainly appear to be comprehensive and well thought out, with provisions for additional changes, regulations and procedures," attorney Bernard Smalley told The Associated Press.

A Corbett aide identified the employees who left the state work force on Friday but would not specify who had been fired and who resigned.

Corbett said some people have been suspended while they investigate further. Corbett press secretary Kevin Harley later added that some people involved in the probe remain on the job because they "have certain rights" as union members.

Corbett described as "speculation" one of the grand jury's most explosive findings: that political considerations involving the issue of abortion led state regulators in the 1990s to cease systematic inspections of abortion facilities.

The 300-page grand jury report that led to the charges against Gosnell, his wife and his former employees said state regulators ignored complaints about him and the clinic. The jury also said testimony by some Department of Health officials "enraged" them.

Department of State supervisory lawyer Chuck Hartwell said he was given a letter that said his services were no longer required.

Hartwell, who worked for the state for 12 years, did not immediately respond to additional e-mailed questions. Basil Merenda, who was secretary of state at the end of Gov. Ed Rendell's administration, said he was terminated on Friday. Like Hartwell, he was told his services were no longer needed.

Merenda, a former deputy attorney general in New Jersey, said that he did not appear before the grand jury and that Corbett's aides did not speak to him as part of their internal review.

Merenda, who had most recently been working as a hearing examiner, said the state Board of Medicine, on which he served, never got a case against Gosnell from the agency's prosecuting lawyers.

"Do you think for one minute that if I had known what was going on with the Gosnell complaints that I would have tolerated that? Come on," Merenda said. "You can't say I was involved in the Gosnell matter when I had absolutely no input."

The other four who resigned or were dismissed on Friday, according to Harley, were Department of State attorney Mark Greenwald and Department of Health senior counsel Kenneth Brody, chief counsel Christine Dutton and deputy secretary for quality assurance Stacy Mitchell. Messages left for Brody and Dutton were not immediately returned; home numbers for Greenwald and Mitchell could not be located.

'House of Horrors' abortionist found GUILTY of three first-degree murder charges

Jury deliberated for 10 days in murder trial of Dr Kermit Gosnell, 72
Verdict comes just hours after jury said they were hung on two counts
He faced four counts of first-degree murder, one of third-degree murder of a patient and more than 200 charges of violating abortion law
He could now face the death penalty for his crimes

A late-term abortionist accused of killing four babies and a patient at a 'House of Horrors' clinic has been found guilty of three first-degree murder charges by a Philadelphia jury.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-shuttered Women's Medical Society Clinic, had been charged with four counts of capital murder in the deaths of babies whose spinal cords he was accused of snipping to bring about their deaths.

He was found not-guilty on one charge, but each of the first-degree capital murder charges could earn him the death penalty.

He was also found guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, 41, a refugee who died after a drug overdose following an abortion in November 2010.


Charged: Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion doctor, is accused of killing 4 babies allegedly born alive

In addition to the murder charges, he faced charges that he performed 24 abortions after 24 weeks - past the legal threshold for Pennsylvania - and more than 200 counts of violating the state's informed consent law for abortion which says there must be a 24-hour waiting period.

The jury found he was guilty of murder in the deaths of babies, who had been named A, C and D for the purpose of the trial.

In earlier testimony, the court heard how a clinic employee had photographed Baby A after Dr Gosnell had joked: 'He's big enough to walk you to the bus stop.'

Clinic workers also testified that they had seen Baby C, a little girl, move her arm before her neck was snipped, bringing about her death.

And Baby D was born in the clinic's bathroom and was seen struggling to get out of the toilet before a worker also snipped their spine.


Tragic: He was found guilty of manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, who died after an abortion

He was found not guilty in the death of Baby E, who workers had said let out a single cry before the neck was snipped.

The verdict was reached just hours after the seven-woman, five-man jury - which had been deliberating for 10 days - sent out a handwritten note to say it was hung on two counts.

But after the jury delivered their note, the judge told them they had to agree on the verdict and were sent back to deliberate.

The jury heard five weeks of testimony before breaking for deliberation on April 30.

As prosecutors gave their closing arguments in Gosnell's trial two weeks ago, Assistant District Attorney Ed Cameron turned to Gosnell and asked 'Are you human?' - but the doctor simply laughed.


Scene: A police car is seen outside the the Women's Medical Society in 2011 following Gosnell's arrest


Discarded: Bags stashed with body parts, pictured, were also found in the Philadelphia clinic

'My dog was treated better than those babies and women,' Cameron said.

He added that Mongar's death was the result of Gosnell's 'assembly line' treatment of patients.

The defense questioned testimony from staffers who said they had seen babies move, cry or breathe, claiming that the babies had died from abortion-inducing drugs rather than severed spines.

Gosnell's defense lawyer, John McMahon, argued that each worker had testified to seeing only a single movement or breath.

'These are not the movements of a live child,' McMahon said. 'There is not one piece - not one - of objective, scientific evidence that anyone was born alive.'

But the prosecutor questioned why else Gosnell and his staff would 'snip' babies if they were not born alive. The brains were intact, so it was not done to make the delivery easier, he said.


Painful: Desiree Hawkins, a former patient of Dr Kermit Gosnell, recounts her ordeal at his abortion clinic. She said detectives called her three years later to reveal her baby's foot was found in a fridge


Nowhere to turn: Davida Clarke said she went to the clinic after she was raped when she was younger

A 2011 grand jury report wrote that dozens of women were injured at Gosnell's clinic over the past 30 years, calling it a ‘house of horrors.’

Some left with torn wombs or bowels, some with venereal disease contracted through the reuse of non-sterilized equipment, and some left with fetal remains still inside them, the report alleged.

Employees at the clinic confirmed that babies were often expelled from their mothers into the toilet. On at least one occasion the toilet had to be removed from the floor to 'get the fetuses out of the pipes.'

Former staffers added that patients received heavy sedatives and painkillers from untrained workers while Gosnell was offsite, and were then left in waiting rooms for hours, often unattended.


Operating table: Women were often given such high doses of drugs that they gave birth in the toilet


No escape: Mongar allegedly died after staff had been unable to open this side door for an hour

And in the grand jury report that initially laid out the charges against Gosnell, details the appalling conditions of the West Philadelphia clinic the doctor operated.

It was described as reeking of cat urine, with walls splattered with blood and patient rooms filled with unsanitary instruments and broken- down equipment.

The tiny fetuses and many of their bodyparts were piled high throughout Gosnell’s clinic in cabinets and freezers, in plastic bags, bottles, even cat-food containers.

Jars with severed feet lined shelves, prosecutors said. 'It was a baby charnel house,' the grand jury report said.

Gosnell has been in jail since his January 2011 arrest. Eight other defendants have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges and are awaiting sentencing.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2323863/Kermit-Gosnell-trial-House-Horrors-abortionist-GUILTY-charges-degree-murder.html

"Clinic workers also testified that they had seen Baby C, a little girl, move her arm before her neck was snipped, bringing about her death. And Baby D was born in the clinic's bathroom and was seen struggling to get out of the toilet before a worker also snipped their spine." This is murder, plain and simple. Killing a baby that is out of the mother moving, crying is murder. This is what we get when we allow all abortions. There is no need for birth control abortions with so much available today including the morning after pill for rapes. This country need to wake up and stop killing little angels. At least these little angels get some justice with hopefully the death penalty for this monster. William

This is just too gruesome. Why didn't he contact an adoption agency? How could an educated man be this stupid and evil?

Life behind bars is too good for him.