Pa. Abortion Doc Charged With 8 Counts of Murder

[sabra]

Source: ABC News/AP

Philadelphia abortion doctor charged with 8 murders, including 7 babies killed with scissors

A Philadelphia abortion doctor has been charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a woman patient and seven babies that prosecutors say were born alive and then killed with scissors.

The charges against Dr. Kermit Gosnell follow a long grand jury investigation.

District Attorney Seth Williams says state regulators ignored complaints and failed to visit the clinic since 1993.

Williams says the women were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society, which was shut down last year.

Gosnell has been named in at least 10 malpractice suits, including one over the death of a woman who died of sepsis and a perforated uterus.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=12647764

[slackmaster]

1. I believe the proper term is Obstetrician/Gynecologist

Automatic Unrec for needless inflammatory language.

[cleanhippie]

2. +1

[Ruby the Liberal]

3. LBN Rules state that you have to use the exact title.

That is the exact title at the link.

Rec, not because I care about the story, but because the OP was following rules.

[slackmaster]

4. It's perfectly to OK a thread because of its content and not because of anything the person...

...who posted it did.

[No Elephants]

28. Depends on your definition of "perfectly OK," Would make much more sense to complain to AP, IMO.

I use unrec. only very rarely.

I use rec if I deem the thread important enough for other DUers to read, even if I hate the content of the news article.

[alp227]

21. new title: "DA: Pa. Abortion Doc Killed 7 Babies With Scissors" n/t

[GillesDeleuze]

5. Reminds me of the horror stories from the 1950s

Rape victims had to experience a second assault from backroom docs... Keep it Legal. Keep it Safe. Keep it Private!

[jwirr]

6. Exactly. The reason we all wanted abortions in legal settings.

[FedUpWithIt All]

13. Except he was not an OB/GYN

He started, but did not finish, a residency in obstetrics-gynecology, authorities said.

The good Dr. also

Gosnell "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord," Williams said.

Bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses "were scattered throughout the building," Williams said. "There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110119/ap_on_re_us/us_abortion_clinic_investigation

Edited to add, so it is not overlooked...

He had a high school student performing intravenous anesthesia with narcotics.

[and-justice-for-all]

45. then he should be charged and convicted accordingly....

and this should be a clear example that their should be no banning of abortion, because that is what it looks like if abortion was banned.

[uppityperson]

16. Except he is NOT an OB/GYN. THAT is part of the problem.

He's an unscrupulous racist asshole preying on women, using underaged non-licensed staff in a filthy clinic.

I am very glad he was stopped and wish it'd happened sooner.

[slackmaster]

18. Then "Fake Obstetrician/Gynecologist" would be proper

:hi:

[uppityperson]

19. Indeed. Or, as I put my post in the Choice forum...

Racist uncertified asshole MD stopped from doing back alley abortions with untrained staff

[slackmaster]

20. That works for me too.

:hi:

[alp227]

22. saw his photo, he's actually black, so more like "black on black crime" i should say n/t

[No Elephants]

29. WTF?

[alp227]

31. i meant: OP claims that doc is racist, but the facts imply otherwise

given that Quack Gosnell is a black "doctor" practicing in a low-income neighborhood with many people of his own race. On the other hand, some of the most extreme conservatives smirk after reading this story.

[Bacchus39]

35. where is the racist claim??? ??????????? ???????

n/t

[alp227]

37. here

"He's an unscrupulous racist asshole preying on women, using underaged non-licensed staff in a filthy clinic."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4702325&mesg_id=4702679

[Bacchus39]

39. Ok, that is NOT the case. you said in the OP so I was confused. n/t

s

[uppityperson]

38. Aside from putting white suburban women in better rooms, since they'd be more likely to complain?

of course, it could be classism rather than racism. In which case my "racism" remark was wrong and I'd call it classism. I am sure someone else might call it being aware of your clientele, but he is still an asshole.

[brendan120678]

7. The things that this...

so-called "doctor" did are horrific.

Here's hoping he's found guilty of all the murder charges levied against him and sentenced to the maximum possible.

[wisteria]

12. +1

[TBF]

26. Agree, that's 7 murder counts as far as I'm concerned. Actually,

more than Jared Loughtner killed. Just appalling.

[liberal N proud]

8. They sure want to make it look like abortion is murder

The "doctor" (using the term loosely) killed them after they were born. It did not sound like there was any abortion that took place.

Fucking media!

[ehrnst]

9. He was performing illegal abortions, and was violating state laws and regulations.

One has to wonder why the state regulators ignored complaints about him. That should absolutely be investigated.

Of course, there are other types of physicians who botch procedures, are incompetent and cause numerous deaths, but they will not make national news.

[justiceischeap]

10. Tinfoil hat time

Sometimes I get wild ideas when I see crap like this. It makes me wonder what this "doctor's" political leanings are. It would make sense to have an anti-abortion "doc" do something heinous to bring to light the "horror" of abortions.

Of course, it doesn't make sense this would go on since '93 if that were indeed the case but it would be a terrific political move to bring the abortion debate back to the foreground.

:tinfoilhat:

[earth mom]

15. I agree. The anti-abortionists and fundies are gonna use this story for all it's worth. nt

[cali]

40. the doctor was making money off of this putrid "practice"

[superduperfarleft]

43. The doctor's "political leanings" are nothing more than being a scumbag

who preyed on desperate, poor women. That is, when he wasn't busy handing out oxycontin scripts to everyone in the neighborhood.

Not everything is some vast fucking conspiracy. :eyes:

[wisteria]

11. This is just a horrible story that should not have been allowed to continue for so many years. n/t

[earth mom]

14. This story is awful, but I can just see the anti-abortionists running wild with this story

and using it as a weapon against those of us who believe in a woman's right to choose. :argh:

[Demit]

17. Inquirer staff writer report gets a good quote from the DA and puts it early in her story:

"The inaction of public agencies is exposed," DA Seth Williams said Tuesday at a press conference.

In addition to Gosnell, his wife, Pearl, and eight employees - none of whom had medical credentials - were arrested Tuesday morning. Four of the workers are also facing murder charges.

Williams said the prosecution is not about the morality of abortion.

"I am aware that abortion is a hot-button topic," he said. "But as district attorney, my job is to carry out the law. A doctor who knowingly and systematically mistreats female patients, to the point that one of them dies in his so-called care, commits murder under the law."


http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20110119_Gruesome_details_in_report_on_Philadelphia_abortion_doctor.html

[alp227]

23. Conservatives will jump all over this story and insert this in their propaganda campaigns

AAH! Abortion doctors will force you to give birth pre-maturely, mess up your reproductive system so that you can never give birth again if you want to, and will drug and rape you! :sarcasm:

But seriously, what Quack Gosnell does no one pro-life, pro-choice, whatever should favor as opposed to real, legal abortions. I mean forcing premature births during 3rd trimester and killing live babies? That's not what real science defines as abortion. There are ethical abortion doctors out there, and there are quacks and monsters and scam artists like Gosnell. Oh, why wouldn't Bill O'Reilly harass Gosnell with "Baby Killer Kermit" instead of obsessively stalking Tiller?

[Sgent]

24. Philadelphia abortion doctor killed 7 babies with scissors, prosecutor alleges

Source: New Orleans Times Picayune / AP

A doctor whose abortion clinic was a filthy, foul-smelling "house of horrors" that was overlooked by regulators for years was charged Wednesday with murder, accused of delivering seven babies alive and then using scissors to kill them.

In a nearly 300-page grand jury report filled with ghastly, stomach-turning detail, prosecutors said Pennsylvania regulators ignored complaints of barbaric conditions at Dr. Kermit Gosnell's clinic, which catered to poor, immigrant and minority women in the city's impoverished West Philadelphia section.

Prosecutors called the gruesome case a "complete regulatory collapse."

"Pennsylvania is not a Third World country," the district attorney's office declared in the report. "There were several oversight agencies that stumbled upon and should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago."

Read more: http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/01/philadelphia_abortion_doctor_k.html

---

If half of what is alleged took place, this guy needs to be in jail. Its ashame thought hat abortion foes will use this as their poster child for years.

[uppityperson]

25. dupe in LBN

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4702325&mesg_id=4702325

[delightfulstar]

27. If the fundies EVER try to take away Roe v. Wade...

This would be the norm. This is textbook back-alley procedure. Imagine the risk he was posing to the women, who likely didn't have many health care choices anyway. We really need to make sure that these doctors are doing it the right way, to minimize the risk of infection, or even death.

[alphafemale]

32. +++++

Legal abortions was intended to prevent this sort of thing.

But safe, legal abortions are increasing harder for women to find, especially for lower income women.

There will always be abortions. If not safe and legal, there will be butcher shops like this.

[TheMadMonk]

34. Strikes me that no one took action until they were forced to because,...

...if you think in terms of dollars alone he was saving any number of social service deparments a bit of money.

And given the huge intersection between the pro-life movement and racial bigotry, I can see them not giving a fuck about dead black kids (and a mother) for quite some time. Deliberately letting it brew and fester for a few years, and then when the time is ripe start making lots and lots of noise.

If seven is the number of post partum murders they feel confident about charging him with, then its a good bet that there are more such cases which might not meet the necessary burden of proof. And beyond that, what is his record on performing more "normal" abortions in the second and first trimesters? I have a strong suspicion he might primarily have functioned as a community abortionist, because there was no one else to do it.

The sad truth is, in a world of poverty where haphazard (rather than non-existent) medical care is the norm, and punitive oversight is also common, infant mortality whilst high nationally is remarkably low for that degree of relative poverty worldwide. We as a society make it almost impossible for a child to die except through deliberate neglect, but far too vociferously refuse to provide support beyond the absolute minimum necessary for bare survival.

In such a world abortion becomes an absolute necessity and somone WILL provide.

What this doc did was horrendous. However, I can also see how it might be possible for him to go from providing a semi-ethical illegal service under less than ideal conditions, to this when faced, time and time again, with desperate women or girls, abandoned, forced onto the streets or otherwise driven beyond their financial or mental means to cope, and justifying to himself the "abortion" even when the mother is "too far along", perhaps intervening when the induced foetus doesn't stop breathing quickly enough, and then once that boundary is crossed, it becomes very hard to step back.

It is fairly obvious that this "service" of his was in demand, and that the mothers came to him seeking it.

We, in our elevated blogsphere, forget (or more likely, never know) the sort of desperation which drives his customers to seek him out. What he did was not right by any stretch of the imagination. However, I don't believe that he should necessarily be as reviled as he is by some, if, as I think, he first set out to help rather than harm. The paving of a certain road notwithstanding.

[nessa]

41. According to the grand jury report...

“But at least the department had been doing something up to that point, however ineffectual. After 1993, even that pro forma effort came to an end. Not because of administrative ennui, although there had been plenty. Instead, the Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were bit anti-abortion, but pro. With the change of the administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded 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.”

http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/grandJury_WomensMedical.html

[Name removed]

46. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[No Elephants]

30. "state regulators ignored complaints" So, big government is not always bad?

Right wing double think.

[AnnieBW]

33. This is what we have to look forward to under the Republicans

More untrained doctors doing botched illegal abortions in back alleys. Welcome to your future, women.

[laureloak]

36. That's why abortion MUST stay legal. Back room dirty operations

were commonplace before abortion was legalized. Anti-abortionists need to go after the real probelem: unwanted pregnancies. Don't remove a solution, even one as unappealing as abortion, until there is a viable remedy to replace it. What happens to mother and child when those unwanted pregnancies are forced to term? Think it through, for once.

[msanthrope]

42. Here in Philly--this case is upsetting and stomach-turning.

Good for Seth Williams.

[Jamastiene]

44. "Jars with severed feet"

:wtf:

Sometimes I cannot believe the horrors that go on, undetected, for so long like this. Then, reality sets in and I realize why I'm pro choice. This would be the norm if it was outlawed. Keep is safe, legal, and well regulated.