Abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia-based doctor who faces murder charges in the deaths of seven babies and a patient in a botched abortion, goes on trial next month.
The 71-year-old abortion doctor faces trial next year after pleading not guilty to the eight murder counts. The murder charges in connection with the deaths of the babies are related to hundreds of unborn children he reportedly caused to be born alive and prosecutors say he and his staff used scissors to kill them by “snipping” at their spinal cords with the scissors.
Gosnell could face the death penalty if convicted and Gosnell faces a mandatory minimum 20 years. He is charged in the 2009 death of Karnamaya Mongar, 41,who died due to an overdose during an abortion procedure at Gosnell’s clinic.. Attorneys for both sides of the abortion and drug cases have been placed under a gag order.
A new report indicates jury selection will begin in the case next month.
While Gosnell’s trial on more than 30 criminal charges has been postponed several times, attorneys believe that the case will go forward with jury selection set to start March 3.
At least one woman who delivered a live baby during an abortion – that was then killed by clinic staff – was from Delaware, according to the grand jury report, and Gosnell started the procedure at a now-closed Wilmington clinic before completing it at his West Philadelphia Women’s Medical Society clinic.
Sherry West, 53, of Bear, and Lynda Williams, 44, of Wilmington – who both worked for Gosnell and were named in the indictment – each reached plea agreements with Philadelphia prosecutors in 2011.
Williams admitted to two counts of third-degree murder for using a pair of scissors to kill one newborn and for her role in the 2009 overdose death of a patient.
West admitted to one count of third-degree murder, two counts of conspiracy and one count of participating in a corrupt organization.
Gosnell also faces charges accusing him of illegally distributing prescription drugs between 2008 and January, 2010 at his abortion business.
Authorities raided the medical offices of Kermit Gosnell in January, 2010, on suspicion that he was operating a pill mill that was the largest source of illegal painkillers sold on the streets of Philadelphia.That was when they discovered a squalid “house of horrors” where illegal late-term abortions were done on drugged, dazed women, where the late-term babies were born alive then murdered by severing their spinal cords with scissors, and where the severed feet of those late-term babies were kept in jars as trophies.
Gosnell’s wife Pearl pleaded guiltyto assisting her husband at his Philadelphia abortion center where he killed a woman in a botched abortion and kills 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 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. 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 pro-life Governor Tom Corbett.
CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!
While the trial moves forward, a pro-life group and state lawmakers are pressing for legislation the state House needs to pass that responds to the grisly abortions and infanticides at Gosnell’s facility. 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.
