Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Allyson Schwartz still won’t say whether she sent any women from her abortion business, when she ran it, to the abortion clinic run by embattled abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell.
Schwartz co-founded and served as the Executive Director of an abortion facility in Philadelphia for 13 years. The facility performed about 1,500 abortions in its final year of operation before declaring bankruptcy.
Other area abortion clinics frequently referred women to Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic for abortions later than they would do. But the gubernatorial hopeful has been silent on whether hers did.
As the Weekly Standard reports:
With the case getting national attention, and with the congresswoman’s political profile rapidly rising, some in Philadelphia’s pro-life community have begun to wonder about Schwartz’s own relationship with Gosnell’s longtime Philly practice. Did the Blackwell Center refer late-term patients to Gosnell while Schwartz was its director? Both Schwartz’s congressional office and her gubernatorial campaign have so far failed to answer requests for on-the-record answers to these questions.
At Blackwell, the answers aren’t clear, either. The doctors there don’t perform abortions on site, but they do refer patients to abortion clinics in the area. These days, Blackwell’s policy is to provide no referrals for any patient seeking an abortion past 21 weeks of gestation. The law in Pennsylvania allows for abortions up until 24 weeks, but a Blackwell employee who answered the phone says a woman after 21 weeks would have to travel to New Jersey or Delaware to get an abortion that late. Why?
“No clinics in Pennsylvania will take patients past 21 weeks,” the employee confirmed.
Not anymore, but there was a time when at least one clinic in the Philadelphia area was performing late-term abortions on women who were past 21 weeks of gestation: Gosnell’s. Late-term abortions were his specialty, particularly for poor minority women. If a woman at 23 weeks came to Blackwell looking for an abortion, where would Blackwell refer her to if not Gosnell’s clinic?
A Planned Parenthood official denies that Blackwell ever referred mothers seeking abortions to take the 10-minute drive across town to Gosnell’s clinic, though she did not explain how she knew this.
“We have never referred to Gosnell,” said the official in an email to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Could she confirm that going all the way back to 1972, the year Gosnell first opened his clinic? The official did not immediately respond.
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Meanwhile, local reporter J.D. Mullane, who has been in the courtroom following the Gosnell murder trial since day one, also confirms no one in the Schwartz camp will answer the question.
I’ve asked pro-choicers Steinem, PP, Pa. gov cand and ex-abort clinic dir Allyson Schwartz for thoughts on #Gosnell. Weeks later, silence.
— jdmullane (@jdmullane) May 5, 2013
