Delaware Abortion Doc Wins Hearing, Reg Bill Moves Ahead

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Apr 13, 2011   |   5:41PM   |   Washington, DC

The Delaware state Senate on Tuesday approved a bill that would allow state health officials to inspect medical centers that do surgery and use anesthesia, which would include abortion centers.

The bill the Senate approved 21-0 is important because it would put in place a mechanism by which the state health department can go after abortion facilities that are flouting the law and putting women at risk. The bill would subject surgical centers like abortion facilities to the same kinds of inspections as hospitals face and lawmakers say it is needed after problems found with Kermit Gosnell.

Gosnell is the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania abortion business owner who ran one of the most filthy and unregulated abortion centers ever exposed and his shoddy practices resulted in the deaths of and injury to women from botched abortions. He also engaged in a brutal practice of live-birth abortions that saw him purposely prematurely birth babies and, afterwards, he would “snip” their spinal cords with medical scissors.

Sen. Bethany Hall-Long, a Democrat, said the bill does not specifically mention abortion centers but they would be included. She added language to the bill that facilities would be subject to inspection if “the accepted standard of care requires anesthesia, major conduction anesthesia or sedation.”

Rep. Bryon Short, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, said the state House would take up a vote on it on Thursday and Gov. Jack Markell intends to sign the bill. Brian Selander, a spokesman for the divisions of public health and professional regulation, told Delaware Online the bill is “a responsible and positive step forward to help protect patient safety.”

Gosnell not only operated in southeast Pennsylvania, but he was employed at the Delaware abortion facility known as Atlantic Women’s Medical Services, with offices in Wilmington and Dover, Delaware, where he would work one day per week to do abortions. That abortion center has already come under investigation from Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden and reportedly falsified abortion reports to state officials.

Following revelations that Gosnell is associatedwith 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.

Meanwhile, the state’s Board of Medical Licensure and Discipline voted to restore the medical license of abortion practitioner Albert Dworkin, who helped embattled abortionist Kermit Gosnell avoid state law and enabled him to run the shoddy abortion business in neighboring Philadelphia.

Dworkin was on the staff of the Women’s Medical Society clinic in Philadelphia, the abortion center Gosnell ran and the medical board agreed with Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden that he presented a “clear and present danger” as obstetrician of record at the abortion center.

Yet, a three-member panel of the board ruled , according to the News Journal newspaper, that Dworkin is not a threat to the public. The board did not release a report revealing why it made the decision but Dworkin, through his attorney Richard Galperin, has maintained that the state merely has a case of guilt by association.

But Deputy Attorney General Barbara Gadbois said the 84-year old abortion practitioner signed a letter that was important in keeping Gosnell’s abortion center open. She said he was also essentially charged with overseeing Gosnell’s activity at the Delaware abortion business, where Gosnell would start abortions that are technically not legal in Delaware and transfer the women to Philadelphia where he would complete the abortion under Pennsylvania’s less restrictive late-term abortion law.

Galperin claims Dworkin was never the medical director of the Atlantic abortion business and claimed staff at the abortion center improperly put Dworkin’s name on the order to release the medical files and he said the letter Dworkin signed for Gosnell helping him keep his Philadelphia abortion business open was not meant to do that. He said Dworkin was the medical director of the Dover clinic where Gosnell did not work but did not oversee the Wilmington office where Gosnell did abortions.

Gosnell and several staffers at his abortion center, including his wife 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.

In the raid, officials found jars containing the remains of pre-born babies dating back 30 years along with filthy and unsafe conditions and evidence that unlicensed workers had been illegally treating patients. The office has no access for a stretcher in the case of an emergency. In previous emergencies, care was delayed because exit doors were padlocked shut or blocked with debris from the clinic.

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 associatedwith 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.

Delaware law does not require inspections of abortion centers but 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.

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 nothingwhen reports came in about problems at Gosnell’s abortion center, which has upset incoming pro-life Governor Tom Corbett who fired several state employees.