Attorney General to Probe Second Gosnell Abortion Center

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jan 28, 2011   |   11:52AM   |   Dover, DE

Much of the attention in the national attention-getting case of Kermit Gosnell has been focused on the Pennsylvania abortion center he ran where he killed and injured women in failed abortions and kills newborn infants by snipping their spinal cords. Now the focus is turning towards an abortion center in Delaware that employed him.

As LifeNews.com has reported, Gosnell  is connected to two other abortion facilities in two states, including the Atlantic Women’s Medical Services in Wilmington, Delaware.  Gosnell is associated with Eileen O’Neill and Leroy Brinkley, who owns the Delta Clinic of Baton Rouge and the Atlantic Women’s Services in Wilmington, Delaware. Gosnell was employed at the Delaware facility one day per week to do abortions.

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.

The newspaper reports 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.

Delaware Right to Life President Nicole Collins added, “I’m very, very glad to hear they are moving forward and they are investigating,” when informed of the probe.

Meanwhile, Operation Rescue, the Christian Defense Coalition, Generation Life, and other national pro-life groups are calling for more investigations.

“The illegal and dangerous practices discovered at Gosnell’s ‘house of horrors’ are not isolated incidents,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman, who added that problems at Gosnell’s facility are similar at other abortion clinics nationwide. “There is a health care crisis in this country that must be immediately addressed to bring an end to the epidemic of abortion abuses inflicted on women and their babies.”

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.