Gosnell Worker: Baby “Jumped” When I Snipped Her Neck in Abortion

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 9, 2013   |   5:10PM   |   Philadelphia, PA

One day after a former employee described how she heard a baby scream during a live-birth abortion, another worker at the Kermit Gosnell “House of Horrors’ abortion clinic testified today she saw a baby “jump” when she snipped her neck in an abortion.

Abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell faces 43 criminal counts, including eight counts of murder in the death of one patient, Karnamaya Monger, and seven newborn infants. Additional charges include conspiracy, drug delivery resulting in death, infanticide, corruption of minors, evidence tampering, theft by deception, abuse of corpse, and corruption.

The trial of the abortion practitioner has been so gruesome and vivid in its accounts of the late-term and live-birth abortions that it has shocked the conscience of the nation, despite a relative lack of media coverage outside of local media and conservative and pro-life news outlets.

Gosnell could face the death penalty if convicted and he faces a mandatory minimum 20 years. If the testimony heard today is any indication, jurors will be swayed by the devastating way in which Gosnell and his staff brutally jabbed medical scissors into the neck of unborn children after birthing them, in a so-called live-birth abortion process.

A second Delaware woman who worked at Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s abortion clinic testified today that it was “standard procedure” to snip the necks of any babies that were delivered by patients before the abortion procedure due to labor-inducing drugs.

And Lynda Williams, 44, of Wilmington, said Gosnell taught her how to flip the body of the baby over and snip its neck with a pair of scissors and recalled one time when she followed these orders and saw the child move.

“It jumped, the arm,” she said, showing the jury by raising her arm.

Earlier she testified, “I only do what I’m told to do … what I was told to do was snip their neck.”

Much like former employee Sherry West who testified Monday, Williams initially said she could not remember key details and had to be reminded by prosecutors showing her copies of her earlier statements to investigators. When Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore initially pressed Williams to describe what she saw when she cut the neck of the child, Williams responded with a blank stare and silence.

Williams also responded the same way when asked about seeing Gosnell cut the necks of babies who were delivered before abortion procedures, admitting after reviewing earlier statements that she had seen Gosnell do this at least 30 times.

Williams testified earlier that she had only gotten as far as eighth grade in school and never graduated. Before working for Gosnell at his Women’s Medical Society Clinic in West Philadelphia, Williams had worked for 10 years at the now-closed Atlantic Women’s Medical Services abortion clinic in Wilmington, where Gosnell worked part-time.

Williams said she was diagnosed as bipolar in 2007 after her husband was killed and left her job at Atlantic, where she sterilized instruments, shortly thereafter and went to work for Gosnell in November 2008.

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Gosnell, whose squalid “house of horrors” abortion clinic has surprised even investigative officials, has had almost flippant attitude toward his macabre abortion practices shocked the nation.

“The Gosnell case is a watershed moment for the issue of abortion,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “The discovery of his horrific practices helped shed light on an abortion industry that has run amok without oversight or accountability for decades, and has prompted significant changes in abortion laws and attitudes toward enforcement in several states.”

Previously, Gosnell’s wife Pearl pleaded guilty to assisting her husband at his Philadelphia abortion center where he killed a woman in a botched abortion and has killed hundreds of babies in abortion-infanticides.

Pearl Gosnell was considering a plea deal similar to the one several of Gosnell’s former abortion center employees have made where they have pleaded guilty to receive a lesser sentence in exchange for testifying against Gosnell. Pearl also worked at the abortion center Gosnell ran that had him kill and injure women in failed abortions and kill perhaps hundreds of babies in grisly infanticides by birthing them and “snipping” their spinal cords.

She worked at the Women’s Medical Society abortion business her husband ran as a full-time medical assistant from 1982 until she married Kermit Gosnell in 1990, when she switched to only working on Sundays. At that time, the abortion business was officially closed but would do its latest-term abortions possible.

The grand jury report indicates Pearl Gosnell testified that she alone helped Kermit do abortions on Sundays when she would “help do the instruments” in the operating room despite no medical training.

Previously, Judge Lerner ruled two other former employees, Eileen O’Neill and Madeline Joe, are not allowed to have their cases separated from that of Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Neither O’Neill nor Joe are charged with killing babies in infanticides and, although their attorneys argued the horrifying allegations against Gosnell could unfairly taint their cases, they were not allowed to plead guilty in deals as was the case with six other former employees.

The murder charges also came in connection with the botched abortion death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who died at Gosnell’s abortion clinic after a failed abortion. Mongar died November 20, 2009, after overdosing on anesthetics prescribed by the doctor. Mongar’s family filed a lawsuit against Gosnell’s abortion business seeking damages.

Gosnell and several staffers at his abortion center, including Pearl, were arrested in January after a grand jury indicted them on multiple charges after officials raided his abortion business following a woman’s death and discovered a “shop of horrors” filled with bags of bodies and body parts of deceased unborn children and babies killed in infanticides. Pearl Gosnell, Kermit’s 49-year-old wife who has no medical license, faces a charge of providing an abortion at 24 or more weeks and conspiracy and other charges.

Gosnell has been denied bail while the case against him moves forward. Women have spoken out about their treatment and one woman says she was drugged and tied up and forced to have an abortion.

Authorities searching the facility last year found bags and bottles holding aborted babies scattered around the building, jars containing babies’ severed feet lining a shelf, as well as filthy, unsanitary furniture and equipment.

The grand jury investigation also shows state officials did nothing when reports came in about problems at Gosnell’s abortion center, which has upset incoming pro-life Governor Tom Corbett.

Gosnell’s abortion center was inspected only after a federal drug raid in 2010.  It was the first time the facility had been inspected in 17 years because state officials ignored complaints and failed to visit Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society for years.

The abortion industry has been forced to suspend two abortion businesses that employed embattled abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, who has been the subject of national controversy over his abortion business in Philadelphia.

Following revelations that Gosnell is associated with two other abortion centers in Louisiana and Delaware, the National Abortion Federation made the decision to suspend the memberships of both. Atlantic Women’s Medical Services, the Delaware abortion business that employed Gosnell one day a week to do abortions, and the Delta Clinic abortion center of Baton Rouge, have both had their memberships suspended. Leroy Brinkley owns both abortion businesses. Atlantic operates abortion centers in Wilmington and Dover.