Former Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania is not interested in accepting any responsibility for the horrors that happened at Kermit Gosnell’s abortion clinic.
Instead of acknowledging how the Grand Jury report in the case pointed the blame squarely at the feet of his administration for not following state law and routinely inspecting abortion clinics, Ridge has decided to attack pro-lifers.
Gosnell was allowed to operate his “house of horrors” with impunity thanks to irresponsible and unjustifiable policies put in place by former Governor Tom Ridge. The grand jury report in the Gosnell case revealed that “Ridge administration officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased.’”
From a report at Brietbart News:
The former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, who was faulted by a grand jury report for permitting convicted abortionist Kermit Gosnell to operate his “house of horrors” without state inspections, told a group of gay and lesbian Republicans that their party’s pro-life and pro-family advocates are “narcissists and ideologues” who are imposing “tyranny” on the United States.
“Sometimes we [Republicans] just come across as too damned self-righteous, and I’m sorry, that’s just not the 21st-century political party GOP that I think we need to govern America,” Ridge said.
“Many Americans are outraged by the moralistic attacks on the gay and lesbian community from some within our party,” Ridge continued, lambasting what he called “the narcissists and ideologues within our party” who promote an “offensive and exclusionary view,” as well as an “unacceptable rigidity and self-righteousness on social issues.”
Pro-life activists, Ridge said, “forget about separation of church and state” and participate in activities that are “consistent with what a church may propose but should not necessarily be at the epicenter of governing.”
Regarding the former governor’s record on abortion, the grand jury in the Gosnell trial placed the blame for the abortionist’s ability to operate his clinic without state interference – even as he snipped the spinal cords of babies born alive during late-term abortion procedures – directly at the doorstep of Ridge himself.
In 1995, the grand jury report states, the administration changed from pro-life Democrat Gov. Bob Casey to pro-choice Republican Gov. Tom Ridge. The transition led officials to conclude “that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.”
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Despite continued complaints about Gosnell – including those made by attorneys representing women who had been injured by him during an abortion, as well as a hand-delivered one from a physician who advised the Pennsylvania Department of Health “that numerous patients he had referred for abortions came back from Gosnell with the same venereal disease – Gosnell was arrested only after officials learned he was running a “pill mill.”
At the instructions of Ridge and in support of the multi-million dollar abortion cabal, neither Gosnell’s abortion facility nor any other Pennsylvania abortion clinic had been inspected by the Pennsylvania Department of Health for the 17 years between 1993 and 2010.
The Ridge Administration concluded that inspections would create a barrier to access to abortion, and therefore they took a hands-off approach. And Governor Ed Rendell continued that appalling policy.
