Abortion Industry Forced to Suspend Centers Employing Gosnell

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 31, 2011   |   11:34AM   |   Dover, DE

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.

Gosnell’s facility was the subject of a grand jury report for its horrifying conditions and Gosnell and several staffers have been arrested for killing a woman in a botched abortion and seven counts of murder related to the infanticide deaths of babies Gosnell would purposefully birth and kill with medical scissors.

The National Abortion Federation, a trade group which hundreds of affiliated abortion businesses, has been caught up in the controversy because it conducted an inspection of Gosnell’s abortion center and found the practices so shoddy it became the first and only abortion center ever not allowed to join. However, NAF failed to notify state or local officials of the massive problems so Gosnell could be held accountable.

Now, following revelations that Gosnell is associated with two other abortion centers in Louisiana and Delaware, NAF has mad 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.

The News Journal newspaper indicates NAF’s suspension means it will no longer be referring women to either abortion center and they will not be listed on the NAF web site, but they will remain open for business because NAF does not have the ability to close them down. The decision by NAF reportedly came after a vote on Friday of its board of directors.

The trade group did not comment to the newspaper about its decision but put out a statement last Thursday to the press saying, “NAF has been cooperating with the District Attorney’s office in Philadelphia. We take the Grand Jury Report seriously and we need to understand why they made the recommendation that they did in order to determine how to proceed.”

In the grand jury report that accompanied the charges, prosecutors in Philadelphia say Brinkley was “unconcerned” about the massive health and safety problems and unsanitary conditions at Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic and it charged that Brinkley failed to properly supervise the staff at his Delaware abortion centers.

“Remarkably, despite Gosnell’s long time association with Atlantic, Brinkley only produced three files for patients seen by Gosnell at Brinkley’s clinic,” the report says.  

Delaware law does not require inspections of abortion centers but, late Thursday, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said his office will launch a “wide-ranging” investigation of Gosnell and probe his work at the Delaware abortion facility given the vast problems at his Pennsylvania abortion center.

“Like most of us, I’m disturbed by the allegations that were handed up by the grand jury in Philadelphia,” said Biden, according to the News Journal newspaper. He said the probe will focus on “a range of issues and we want to get to the bottom of it.”

“It is under way and has been under way,” Biden said of the probe, and he indicated staff from his office and Delaware investigators have already met with officials from Pennsylvania to determine if any criminal acts of violations of state health and safety standards occurred in Delaware or by those associated with Gosnell in the state.

The announcement of the probe come on the same day members of Delaware Right to Life and national pro-life groups called for investigations into whether Atlantic and the two other abortion clinics that operate in Delaware are following state laws.

James Haley Jr., an attorney with the pro-life group, said there is “probable cause” in the wide-ranging grand jury report highlighting the problems at Gosnell’s abortion center that warranted close scrutiny in Delaware. He says there could be an accessory to murder charge in one of the abortion-infanticide cases because Gosnell consulted with a woman in Delaware who paid Gosnell $2,500 for an abortion that was too late to be legal in Delaware. Gosnell reportedly started the abortion in Delaware, by administering drugs, and then transported the woman to his Philadelphia abortion business.

Haley also noted Gosnell apparently defrauded a Delaware-based group that funds abortions for poor women by changing the address of Pennsylvania residents getting abortions to Delaware locations.

Gosnell has been charged with eight counts of murder and several of his staff at the abortion center, including his wife and sister-in-law, have been charged as well in the case with assisting in botched abortions, practicing medicine without a license or covering up the actions of those who did. The counts include grisly infanticidesthat involved Gosnell snipping the spines with scissors of babies who had purposefully been prematurely born so they could be killed moments later.

Mongar died November 20, 2009, after overdosing on anesthetics prescribed by the doctor, Williams said. Mongar’s family filed a lawsuit against Gosnell’s abortion business seeking damages.

“We want justice, this doctor has to be out of that clinic or he should not be treating anybody,” Damber Ghalley told CNN. “And the things that happen to my sister, I don’t want to happen to anybody in the future.”

He told CNN “the clinic was so dirty, filthy with blood stains and a dirty floor, everywhere dirty, I cannot describe how dirty it was.”

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.