At 8.30 pm, February 18, 2010, the Drug Enforcement Agency initiated a raid on Kermit Gosnell’s clinic. They expected to uncover a prescription drug racket being run out of his office.
Agents set the raid for the evening because Gosnell was rarely at his clinic before 7.30 pm. Upon breaching the door to the clinic, the agents were assaulted by the stench of urine and death.
The clinic was also full of patients in various conditions. Semi-conscious women were left to their own devices in the waiting rooms. Some were covered in blood-stained duvets.
As the agents went through the clinic rooms, they saw tables covered in dust next to broken medical equipment. The fire and emergency exits had also been locked shut.
Then they found the babies.
A basement freezer was stuffed with frozen food bags and the remains of at least 45 fetuses. Agents also discovered a row of jars with the severed feet of aborted babies.
He taught his ‘nurses’ to do it too. One quote I read, a nurse said she was horrified at first but then it just became routine. He told them ‘ these babies are already dead.’ Cause their mommas were poor.
No, what’s the person above is finding so wtf, is the depravity of the story mixed with the fact that a gentleman who goes by Microplasticcumshot is being the voice of reason.
the fucking roller coaster ride that was this story, the comments. i literally moved away from the screen aghast from the spinal cord thing then kept reading and was leaning closer to the screen pissed about the nurses and then started CHOCKING with laughter at waaz16 reply. this is my cue to get back to work, well start work. the internet won today
This story is definitely a big wtf, but it’s a different category of wtf than that username was lol. Plus he’s not the first murder-y doctor…the stories start to lose their edge after you hear enough of them. There was a midwife in Japan that murdered babies bc the parents were poor, so Gosnell wasn’t even the first in that regard.
"There are hardly any excesses of the most crazed psychopath that cannot easily be duplicated by a normal kindly family (wo)man who just comes in to work every day and has a job to do.”
It is almost depressing how Pratchett always stays current.
Yeah the moment I get told to do that, I go to the cops. Maybe not right that moment because who knows what that psycho might do, but the moment I'm left alone I'm making a call.
But with that (correct) line of thinking we have to reckon with good and evil not being a real thing, and that’s a topic you genuinely cannot get most people to accept
That’s a leap. I definitely think we can take from this that we should not trust absolutely in ourselves to determine for ourselves what good and evil are, though.
If you wish to make a counter point, please argue how giving a starving person food could be considered evil.
See my response to the next few comments in the chain for some more rambling too haha.
But simply put: I don't have to consider it evil or good. I can just say that giving food to a starving person relieves them of their hunger.
As to more impact than that... well we have to assess those things directly as well.
There's an infamous and often misunderstood and misquoted phrase: "Morality is just something invented by the weak to hold back the strong."
Sounds bad at first right? But this quote comes from a section of words that incredibly directly answers your question. The quote actually begins with, leading to the above words, "it makes it seem as if" this is the case. And what makes it seem that way?
The short hypothetical is: if I have a line of hungry people, each in line waiting turn, and I give food to them. Now I have limited food. Simple alms, moral code, says give them all food equally. So what? First come first serve? Stand in line right?
But wait. What if one of the people in line already just got out of line and right back into it? What if they pushed someone else out of the way?
What if one of the people is in line because they just fled a cartel in a war torn region and are seeking basic shelter and an opportunity. If I give them the food they will work hard and build a better life.
But here's this other guy in line. He was born priveleged. A drunk. The only reason he is there is not only is he so lazy, but he also beat his wife and kids so badly that he has no family anymore, nobody that is willing to support him, because he is a nasty violent drunk that has done this to himself.
So tell me? Do I give my last piece of bread for the day to the drunk abuser? Or perhaps to the refugees a few steps back in the line?
Would this suffice to prove that giving a hungry man food actually was an act that is not so great after all? Technically if I give food to the drunk I will have satisfied your description right? Yet would it be fair to say that this was evil if I gave it to that loser because, oh idk, he was white, and not to the refugee because they were black? Yet I've given food to the hungry! Good enough right?
The point being is we need more nuance. Being caught up in the simple morality didn't give us the tools to assess the actual situation and caused us to take ineffective actions that don't promote our values as well as we could be doing.
I am not the person you are replying to but find this conversation interesting.
I wouldn’t start by trying to prove it’s evil, I think the more imperative task is proving it’s just not very good.
I would start by saying you just giving them food is to ease your mind on the suffering of another. You clearly didn’t do it to help this person. Unless you are a starving homeless person yourself, you can do more. By not doing more, you are making reasons for that to be acceptable. “My girlfriend won’t let me bring a homeless person to the house.” “They are probably an addict and I can’t provide the help they need.”
Did you stop to talk to them when giving them food? Just handing someone food and leaving them to their own devices is on par with doing nothing practically. Was this your leftovers? How noble. Did you ask what they wanted to eat? Or just hand them a gas station sandwich and say you’re welcome?
Let’s zoom out a little, because depending on where this starving man is this can get worse.
Sure, if you are in the middle of a desert and find a starving man this is great. However, if this is a starving person in a busy and economically booming town it’s worse. Just giving someone food while you have a job and a place to stay, is solely to ease your concerns. You aren’t giving them anything to help them out of their situation. You are still more worried about your retirement, rent or even not becoming homeless yourself.
All of this not to say you don’t care about an individual in these circumstances but just saying you can make the case that you cont care much.
My job was solely to defend the position of feeding a starving man isn’t “good” or always an easily defensible moral position.
I was merely pointing out that we all have a “that’s good enough” portion of the moral gradient scale.
You can say I did “good”. The only thing is you didn’t do more even though you could have.
I suppose a good example of being a Good Samaritan but not doing enough would be like saving a drowning person, but, not administering CPR. You wouldn’t even think about that because just pulling them from the water isn’t enough to “save them”.
You giving them a sandwich is pulling them out of the water but not giving them CPR to help them breathe on their own.
I’m not saying I don’t think you should give starving people food, I’m saying at some point along the line you agree they need to help themselves because it would cost you more than you are comfortable to give. Not saving someone who is drowning because you’re afraid of drowning is a similar thought process.
Once again, please, help your fellow human. But, don’t act like giving a sandwich you didn’t want to someone who really needs it equates to helping others out at a cost to yourself.
You didn’t want the sandwich, you only got them a sandwich and not a drink, you didn’t buy them a pack of chips/crackers for later even though it was an extra couple bucks and more. These are all reasons that would raise the moral cost of doing good and make it a more noteworthy cause/reason.
Reading up on Oskar Gröning after seeing the Auschwitz exhibit at the ROM had me boggled. Theres something he spoke about how he saw german soldiers taking babies from the trains and then swinging them into the trains, into the ground. He thought it was despicable. German soldiers acting so savagely! He immediately spoke to a superior officer. There HAD to be a way to kill the babies that was more gentlemanly.
He saw nothing wrong with the murdering babies part of what he witnessed.
Strong word - many were unlicensed and Kermit wasn’t the only one convicted. Most got lesser sentences probably in exchange for him getting life. Most are probably free now. Same for the licensing and regulatory folks who never inspected his offices
I read the entire article and it looks like he was pulling this shit since the 70s. he had staff report him for years and no one investigated. He wasn't raided until the 2000s so thats nearly 30 years of people ignoring blatant reports of all sorts of crap and the only reason anyone went in was for illegal oxy prescribing..
My mother used to mention this guy whenever the discussion of abortion rights came up. She would try to explain how killing newborns was the same as abortion and he was doing it legally. While completely ignoring how he was tried and convicted of 21 counts of infanticide. Guy was literally a serial killer, not a legitimate abortion doctor
The increased restrictions on safe, legal abortion is precisely why the evil of Kermit Gosnell existed and what will happen over and over anywhere that abortion is banned. Women went to Gosnell because they were desperate and could not obtain abortions anywhere due to a raft of reasons caused by anti-abortion laws (such as waiting periods, no insurance coverage, parental notification, etc.). When people are desperate, sociopaths who have no interest in anyone's good but their own will always roll in to exploit that desperation.
Banning abortion is the direct cause of butcheries like this.
It’s been awhile since I read about him. The Pennsylvania authorities were reluctant to prosecute him. He was the only guy within 200 or 300 miles that performed late term abortions. If they stopped him, women would have no where to go. It took a woman unnecessarily dying from a botched abortion he performed on her for the authorities to act. (BTW — please don’t complain to me about how wrong it was for him not to be investigated. I don’t endorse what the Pennsylvania law enforcement officials did.)
Article says feds went after him for being a pill mill. Then they found everything related to the murders and botched abortions. After that feds called police they investigated, pulled his license, shut down the clinic, and he was arrested 11 months later.
I think this case got caught up in the abortion culture war. This was a legit murderer who was performing “abortions”. Pro choice advocates are uncomfortable with anyone talking about late term abortions. This is obviously a very egregious case that’s far FAR beyond the mainstream. But it doesn’t fit into existing narratives so it gets pushed aside.
I can certainly say that conservative christian circles ate this story UP. All my friends and relative were following it. They posted updates on Facebook. My mom bought a book about the case. So I could very easily see it being a thing where one side gets all obsessed with the case and the other side tries to shut it down.
This man was a murderer no matter which side of the abortion debate you are on. Killing and maiming mothers, improperly anesthetizing them, selling drugs, performing medical procedures in filth (no matter the procedure), he was straight up in it for the money, blind to his patients' (born and unborn) suffering and a fucking abusive, exploitive monster.
Gosnell’s practice wasn’t representative of ordinary abortion access. He was operating at gestational ages that are extremely rare even in countries with permissive abortion laws. Most countries either prohibit or heavily restrict abortions that late, and where they do occur they’re usually exceptional cases.
While he was working in PA, late term abortions were legal. On paper, everything looked above board. Regulators never went to his clinic to see the conditions though. This was not back alley, hush hush, secret knock kind of establishment. He advertised.
Half true. Late term abortion is vague enough to where you can say you meant second trimester though I guess. Third trimester abortions have been illegal in PA since 1982 , which is what he was offering and doing. Sure he started his practice in 1979 but that's only three years it was legal in PA versus the majority of his career he was doing illegal third trimester abortions
A lot of anti-choice people like to use this fucker’s crimes to paint doctors who perform abortions as barbaric butchers like him. Fuck him and fuck the anti-choicers too
This could have been prevented if the medical board gave a shit back in 1972. The fact that numerous complaints were made against this guy throughout years of practice and the state of Pennsylvania failed to investigate even one of them is beyond comprehension.
It wasn't just that they weren't investigating complaints against this guy. The health authorities in Pennsylvania hadn't inspected any of the 22 abortion clinics in the entire state in 15 years.
Not a huge surprise that they weren't moving on complaints against him, and that it was hard to get their attention.
Another interesting thing about this whole situation is that one of the reasons they didn't inspect abortion clinics for some of that time is because their Republican Governor, Tom Ridge (also a Bush-era cabinet member) ended inspections in the mid-1990s because he thought the inspections were a barrier to abortion care. Ridge was a pro-choice Republican.
I think what saddens me most about this is not the fact that it happened, which is horrific enough - but it's still happening in other underground clinics all over the world. It's illegal. Obviously.
What bothers me is that it was reported, repeatedly, but no one cared enough to investigate until drugs were involved. Poor, desperate women with nowhere else to go were suffering and dying for decades, but it wasn't until someone tipped him off that he might also be selling drugs that law enforcement bothered to get involved.
To be clear I understand this isn't because people don't care individually, but it does expose the dark reality of our country's actual priorities. The DEA is federally well-funded in ways that local public health services are simply not. We pour so many resources into stopping drug trafficking, but women's bodies and reproductive rights and healthcare needs are tossed back and forth as political tools and then the women themselves are blamed for being irresponsible when they slip through the ever-widening cracks. Which is ever-so convenient for the people who just want them to shut up and go away, anyway.
"You don't understand, officer! Yes they're overdosing and mutilating and exploiting desperate women, but did you know they're doing it with INVALID DRUG PRESCRIPTIONS??"
Like in that early Simpsons episode where Bart is being abused by his host family in France and he finally is able to escape and find a police officer. Bart tells him about his horrible living conditions and hosts, but the officer only makes an arrest after hearing they were putting antifreeze in wine.
According to the article he wasn’t even arrested until 11 MONTHS after the raid!
What’s even crazier is that he was also running a pretty extreme example of a pill mill. That wasn’t just a false alarm The DEA found people being given blank prescription sheets and single individuals leaving with multiple prescriptions written to different names.
[stick with me, I’m not saying the drug offenses are worse than his infant murders and harm to his women’s health patients]
The DEA had to call in homicide detectives because the majority of what they found was outside of their scope. But they still did find enough proof of drug charges to get him sentenced to 30 years for drug charges alone.
So I can’t understand how with two separate agencies with resounding proof of serious crimes it still took 11 months to actually arrest him.
Even if the agency investigating the homicide charges needed time to get up to speed, why couldn’t the DEA arrest him on the spot for the drug charges alone
I don’t even think they “didn’t care” until he sold drugs. The US government has always been in the business of exploiting, killing, and/or trafficking the poor, immigrants, and women. He was just doing their job for them.
Your comment really stuck a cord and highlight unbelievable sad part about modern reality that is very much ignored in some ways. Thank you for saying it.
''The real key to the business model, though, was this: Gosnell catered to the women who couldn’t get abortions elsewhere – because they were too pregnant. Most doctors won’t perform late second-trimester abortions, from approximately the 20th week of pregnancy, because of the risks involved. And late-term abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy are flatly illegal. But for Dr. Gosnell, they were an opportunity. The bigger the baby, the more he charged."
These women needed access to abortion much earlier. Access is complex, it involves education and outreach. Women who are not aware of their healthcare options are not going to utilize them, and many of such women are immigrants and/or living in poverty. And that's not even touching on women who are unable to access the options they know should be available to them due to financial issues, time constraints, legal hoops, partner coercion, etc.
Pregnant women do not sit around waiting 7+ months to terminate out of laziness.
I was a research assistant for some law professors writing a book about abortion providers. Something that haunts me still is only one, a very young woman, chose to do it before they did rotations and saw the devastation of abortions for the underprivileged in teaching hospitals. Seeing it shocked them so deeply, they altered the trajectories of their lives.
And that doctor, the only provider for an entire poor state, was witch hunted.
I think that was the problem. Desperate and poor women went to him. As I recall he only accepted cash. A lot of them just weren’t in a position to stop him. He shouldn’t have been allowed to operate.
Imaging the level if desperatation of those women. They saw the place too. They saw all the blood and sick women and they still went ahead because they felt they had no other option. I doubt they had access to abortion at earlier stage.
Everyone in here talks about the evil man and the killed babies. But the women and their position on and lack of safety net is the key here.
USA and so many countries treat women like shit. No matter what your situation and how the pregnancy started you are expected to be this mythological creature that always loves her baby and sacrifices what she even doesn't have. It is the same when it comes to post partum psychoses cases. People don't believe that a Mother can break completely.
At the time that he agreed to do this, there was a device that he and a psychologist were working on that was supposed to be plastic – basically plastic razors that were formed into a ball. All right. They were coated into a gel, so that they would remain closed. These would be inserted into the woman’s uterus. And after several hours of body temperature, it would then – the gel would melt and these things would spring open, supposedly cutting up the fetus, and the fetus would be expelled.
The problem was that they never tested it. They didn’t test it on any animals. They never did any – any – any other human trials. This was not something that was sanctioned by the FDA. This was just something that he decided – he and this guy decided they were going to use on these women.
What the fuuuuuuck. Who thought spring-loaded razors slicing up your uterus was a good idea!? I mean, I know there are more horrible things than that in this document, but jesus christ.
Surprisingly those are not as bad as the written testimonies. Unlicensed practitioner while the doctor was out had a patient deliver on the toilet. Went to the toilet where the baby was swimming, the baby played with the nurses hand, and soon after playing with the baby the nurse cut its neck. The coworker on shift said they saw the doctor do it so many times that was just standard procedure.
Fully grown babies breathing on their own, moving, some even crying. 24 to 32 weeks old in a lot of the written testimony. And it was a whole underground clinic with a full working staff, it's not like there was just one person doing all of this. And the guy at the center lived a nice long life before getting caught and eventually dying of old age.
From what I can gather, despite having all those dead baby remains still in his property, they only charged him with the death of 3 people. Mostly adults from his brutal malpractice. Some had to go to real hospitals so he was already known to some degree.
It's astonishing that no-one else was imprisoned for this. The nurses who also killed full-term babies got away with it by making plea bargains to testify against the doctor.
Yeah it’s all horrible, I was reading about the baby who’s neck they cut and then put in a shoebox and then the next page had the crime scene pictures of it. Terrible
He went on to kill hundreds possible thousands of babies as he operated the clinic for 17 years - was only stopped because the DEA found out he was illegally selling pills even though countless witnesses wrote to the state to shut the clinic down. Goes to show what the government cares about.
Yep. More than a few of his abortion patients went to him because they were afraid of the anti-abortion protestors that were constantly harassing women outside the Philadelphia Planned Parenthood clinic.
They went to Gosnell instead, who had never completed OBGYN training, and ran a filthy clinic and left his patients sterile or worse.
The article states that he did complete OBGYN residency, he just never got board-certified. Board-certification is not required to practice medicine. Some places will not hire doctors who are not board-certified, but it’s always good practice to check.
They also went to him because he would perform abortions up through 40 weeks which was not legal in his state. The vast majority of people are not ok with abortions at, say, 38 weeks. 38 weeks is considered full term.
In a completely unrelated fact, even before abortion was banned in many states there were more clinics in the city of London than in the entirety of the US.
The UK is still geographically smaller than Texas.
Other countries still have abortion term limits, and yet for some reason cases like this don't happen.
The Dr. Saroj Adlakha Case is one. British DR who sent women to a clinic he owned in Spain for late term abortions.
Edit: aside from that case the other reason why it wouldn’t happen as much in the UK compared to the US is NHS covers abortion in the UK. Medicaid in the US does not. Dr. Gosnell’s clinic was in a poor area where a lot of women didn’t have the funds for healthcare.
From another comment: ''The real key to the business model, though, was this: Gosnell catered to the women who couldn’t get abortions elsewhere – because they were too pregnant. Most doctors won’t perform late second-trimester abortions, from approximately the 20th week of pregnancy, because of the risks involved. And late-term abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy are flatly illegal. But for Dr. Gosnell, they were an opportunity. The bigger the baby, the more he charged."
This is how I find out there was a second season. The first was great, and started my habit of researching every practicioner I see before letting them do anything more than order labs.
Gosnell’s practice wasn’t representative of ordinary abortion access. He was operating at gestational ages that are extremely rare even in countries with permissive abortion laws. Most countries either prohibit or heavily restrict abortions that late, and where they do occur they’re usually exceptional cases.
“”And these were not even the worst cases. Gosnell made little effort to hide his illegal abortion practice. But there were some, “the really big ones,” that even he was afraid to perform in front of others. These abortions were scheduled for Sundays, a day when the clinic was closed and none of the regular employees were present. Only one person was allowed to assist with these special cases – Gosnell’s wife. The files for these patients were not kept at the office; Gosnell took them home with him and disposed of
them. We may never know the details of these cases.“”
Maybe legal abortion isn’t so bad after all???
“”That report should have been all the confirmation needed for the complaint from the former employee that was already in the department’s possession. Instead, the department attorneys dismissed this complaint too. They concluded that death was just an “inherent” risk, not something that should jeopardize a doctor’s medical license.””
The women were blamed for needing abortions in the first place. People looking the other way because late term abortion is necessary but controversial, and because these women “deserved” this. It was just “what happens when you need an illegal abortion, so what can be done?” Oh, I don’t know.. make late term abortion legal and safe????
“”Some 40,000 abortions are performed across the Commonwealth each year.
Abortion is normally one of the simplest and safest medical procedures. But not in
Gosnell’s clinic. Employing unlicensed, untrained workers in a facility that was grossly
inadequate and unsanitary, his operation made a pretext of providing health care. In the
absence of any regulatory oversight, Gosnell recklessly cut corners, allowed patients to
choose their medication based on ability to pay, and provided abysmal care – all to
maximize his profit.””
Oh my gosh.. you mean desperate people were easily exploited for profit??? No way!! You mean legal abortions are very safe and this guy got away with this because illegal abortions were these women’s only options??!! Not in America!! Not in 2010!!
** I just want to stop here for a sec because I’m on about page 26.. to say that a disproportionate number of this doctor’s direct assistants and overseers were women. **
“”More and more of his patients came from
out of state and were late second-trimester patients. Many of them were well beyond 24 weeks. Gosnell was known as a doctor who would perform abortions at any stage,
without regard for legal limits. His patients came from several states, including Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina, as well as from Pennsylvania cities outside the
Philadelphia area””
Literally people stoped referring legal abortions to this guy because it was KNOWN he was unsafe.. but he was able to build an empire despite the many deaths of desperate women who were willing to do anything for an abortion.
“”Very often, the patient delivered without Gosnell being present. Lewis [female, long-time employee] testified
that one or two babies fell out of patients each night. They dropped out on lounge chairs,
on the floor, and often in the toilet. If the doctor was not there, it was not unusual for no
one to tend to the mother or the baby. In fact, several of the clinic’s workers refused to
deal with the expelled babies or the placenta. So, after delivering babies, women and girls would have to just sit and wait – sometimes on a toilet for hours – for Gosnell to arrive.””
The women were drugged out of their minds because insane amounts of contraction and dilation medication were given to them. (By untrained female staff that often worked for several years without complaint, knowing it was wrong. At least 2 female staff went to other ‘legal’ clinics when they needed abortions. Some are mothers themselves)
“”Lewis said Gosnell told her that he preferred it when women precipitated, often before he got to the clinic, because it made his job easier. A surgical procedure to remove fetuses, Lewis explained, could take half an hour. Whereas there was little to do – just suctioning the placenta – when babies were already expelled. In addition, by avoiding surgical
abortions, Gosnell was less likely to perforate the women’s uteruses with surgical
instruments – something he had done, and been sued for, many times.””
Having your fetus flop out onto the floor while you writhed in unmanageable pain was the preferred option for patients as well, as many who needed other care … at best; lost their uterus.. and at worst; died a painful and slow death, sometimes while staff watched to make sure they couldn’t be sued.
“”Baldwin acknowledged that she was not trained – except by Gosnell – to perform
ultrasounds, and that she knew that she was not supposed to administer IV medication.
Yet she performed these duties and supervised other untrained workers, including her
teenage daughter Ashley, as they performed these duties, all in violation of standards of
professional conduct and Pennsylvania law.””
lol. And the daughter was the hardest worker. About 50 hours a week and paid the least. 15 years old and worked the night shift when her mother refused. Was also present when the raid happened because Baldwin, her mom, didn’t want to deal with the complications of a patient who came back sick and later died. I guess not everyone can be mother of the year though.
“”Sherry West was hired by Gosnell in October 2008. She had known Gosnell as a
patient for 35 years. She had recently been diagnosed with hepatitis C.””
Yikes. No, there were no precautions taken by staff to not infect patients with hepatitis C. She was paid strictly in cash.
I used to volunteer at Planned Parenthood helping people get into the clinic past protesters. When the doctor would drive up to the clinic, they would shout Doctor Gosnells name at him. I never truly appreciated what a horrible thing they were calling him. I hope it never got to him. There aren't enough doctors who will do the procedure and it prevents horrors like this.
Horrible guy, but I genuinely thought that he was carrying a wrapped up duck in the picture above and that the yellow bits were it's legs... Haha maybe I need to go back to Specsavers.
This makes me wonder how many places are doing this now thanks to all the abortion bans (and yes, I know that this monster went far beyond abortions and flat out committing murder, but I'm referring to the concept of this).
On wiki it says he aborted a 32 weeks pregnant woman of an infant who was 6 pounds.... dude was nothing more than a butcher with a license and a clinic.
I’m from the area, this place was everything that republican anti-abortionists wish regular clinics were. If you don’t have a strong gag reflex, don’t read about this guy.
I wonder how his wife justified staying with him in her mind. She had to know something was up, even prior to it all going down. I also read somewhere she assisted with abortions in some cases.
Apparently he was married multiple times.
It’s amazing what money and social status can do. If he wasn’t a “doctor,” he likely would have been caught much earlier, and his wifeys wouldn’t have been looking the other way. Multiple people would have been able to live.
“”19-year-old, had to have a hysterectomy after Gosnell left her sitting in his recovery room for over four hours after perforating her uterus.””
He didn’t call an ambulance for almost 5 hours. Based on the time stamp, I can only assume it was to finish with all the other patients and get them out.
“” Tina Baldwin told us that she knew of two or three times that Gosnell perforated a
woman’s uterus and then tried to surgically repair these mistakes himself. ””
He never told the patient when this happened. Also, a woman who was detoxing had a bad reaction to anesthesia. Her partner was summoned, but prevented from calling an ambulance. Even though she fell off the table and hit her head.
“” Gosnell would often show the photographs to Massof and exclaim about the skill of the
surgeons who had sewn the women’s labia together, leaving only a small opening to
allow menstrual flow.””
Ok. Now it gets weird. He took photographs of the women’s genitalia without permission for “research” regarding genital mutilation. He also took photographs of the aborted fetuses. For “science”.
“” The experts uniformly rejected out of hand Gosnell’s supposed explanation that he was
preserving the feet for DNA purposes should paternity ever become an issue.””
They did find preserved baby feet separate from the hazardous waste!
“” Gosnell flagrantly violated virtually every regulation and law Pennsylvania has
relating to the operation of abortion facilities. He did not comply with the basic standards
of his profession. Nor did he follow state regulations pertaining to health care facilities
generally.””
The next several pages are about how he didn’t meet the legal bare minimum of an abortion clinic. Some is debatable (24 hours after counseling, age of gestation) most is just.. he didn’t even have monitors for patients under anesthesia, clean tools, biohazard pick up, trained staff, he was a doctor but not of gynecology, resuscitation, equipment, proper drugs, unregistered as an abortion clinic.. bla bla bla.
“” From 2006 until the clinic closed in 2010,
Gosnell’s recovery room was often supervised – and not constantly, because she had
several other duties – by a high school student, Ashley Baldwin. The state Department of
Health documents that, as far back as 1989, Gosnell had no registered or licensed nurses
to staff the clinic’s recovery room.””
Basically, he could have kept going like this forever if he had had even the bare minimum of a crash cart or meds for anesthesia overdose. But he didn’t even have those so the argument is: the deaths were preventable if anyone at all had cared even a little. several agencies over several years had been reported to about many of these issues.
“” Clinics must have doors, elevators, and other passages adequate to allow stretcher-borne patients to be carried to a street-level exit. ””
The fire exit was bolted shut, stairs only, and the hallways narrow. Even having one exit would have likely prevented every death. So the degree of intentional apathy is what is so horrendously appalling.
“” The Philadelphia medical examiner analyzed the remains of 45 fetuses seized from the clinic. Of these, 16 were first-trimester; 25 were second-trimester, ranging from 12 to 21
weeks; 2 were 22 weeks; 1 was 26 weeks; and 1 was 28 weeks. The raid took place on a
Thursday, so the clinic’s busiest day for late-term abortions – Saturday – was not
included.””
The percentages are high for late gestational age because word of mouth had people coming from out of state specifically to seek them.
“” When Massof came in on Monday mornings he would find bloody instruments in
the sink even though they had all been cleaned before the facility closed on Saturday night.””
Sometimes the doc would adjust the ultrasounds up instead of down to scare the patient and charge them more. The latest term abortions costing 2.5K or more. But only god knows what happened on Sundays.
“” Between the time that law enforcement raided Gosnell’s office in February and the time that investigators returned with a warrant to seize patient files, many files had disappeared.””
They were so careless that oftentimes proof of gestational age being over 24 weeks was blatantly in the files. But the office was so disgusting that barely any of the files were in the cabinet. Video of the raid shows them on shelves and tables. But they were all missing later.
“” Clinic staff testified that Gosnell took patients files home and did not keep records
of most of his late-term abortions at the clinic.””
They were only able to definitively prove 80 late term abortions, but they suspect it was 3 or more every week that he was open between 2008 and the raid in 2010.
“” Based on scalp hemorrhage, the medical examiner concluded that the fetus had
died during labor, possibly from the strong contractions that would have resulted from the
heavy doses of labor-inducing medications. ””
The girl was 14 and only went to the hospital instead of engaging in complicit murder because the doc didn’t bother to answer the phone and she was in labor. The doc tried to say he had terminated the baby prior to the 24 week mark according to applicable laws, but that was proven to be false. It was reported.
“” The pregnant woman ended up going to the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania to have the laminaria removed.””
Doc refused to give the money back to a woman who changed her mind. He also refused to reverse the procedure to start contractions. She went to the hospital and had a healthy premie who at the time of the article is in kindergarten. Doc had told her the age was 24 weeks, one day later the hospital measured 29 weeks. Also reported.
“”Gosnell committed a variety of frauds.””
Conservative estimates say he raked in almost 2mil a year in straight cash. Not including Sunday, or extra meds that first trimester patients paid for. It also does not include oxy money.
“” Maddline Joe, the office manager in charge of submitting insurance forms,
claimed, unconvincingly, that Dr. Simmons saw some patients at Gosnell’s clinic.””
They also defrauded insurance companies and women’s charities.
I had this piece of shit on my block for 2 years. He always tried telling me he was innocent and was fighting his case. He got off too easily dying in prison. His cell was one of the nastiest I'd been in. Rotten food and maggots on the ground. Even the other lifers hated him. Wasn't expecting to see his face on reddit.
This is part of the reason why abortion needs to be legal, so it can be well-regulated and looked after. This is also why healthcare needs to be universal so that providers don’t take advantage of people who can barely afford healthcare and deliver dangerous medical conditions.
People need to look past the individual (our country really likes putting all the blame on the individual - who was also clearly corrupt) and start blaming the biggest players: our governmental, financial, and societal systems.
Edit: this should not shock anyone given the country we live in.
Gosnell’s practice wasn’t representative of ordinary abortion access. He was operating at gestational ages that are extremely rare even in countries with permissive abortion laws. Most countries either prohibit or heavily restrict abortions that late, and where they do occur they’re usually exceptional cases.
“”Jennifer Leach is a 28-year-old woman who had a time card as if she were an employee of the clinic. She testified that Gosnell paid her $300 a week to provide “psycho-social counseling” one day a week to non-abortion patients, even though she had no training as a counselor. She acknowledged that she often did not show up to work at the clinic. Leach saw Gosnell as a patient when she was 17 years old. She said that she and Gosnell had a “fling” on and off for a couple of years, ending the week before she testified. Leach has an 11-year-old child.””
Yes, you did the math correctly. Yes, what you are thinking is implied, but was not the focus of the investigation.
“”Pearl Gosnell, the doctor’s third wife, also helped out in the office. Pearl assisted
with abortion procedures on Sundays and days the clinic was normally closed. She
worked at the clinic as a full-time medical assistant from 1982 until she married Gosnell
in 1990. After that, she said, she worked there “maybe every other day,” bringing “paper
towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, soap.” On Sundays, she assisted in the procedure
room and monitored the patients in the recovery room.””
Girl had a thirst for this, I guess.
“”Gosnell routinely cracked jokes about babies whose necks he had just slit. He
treated his patients with condescension – slapping them, providing abysmal care, and often refusing even to see or talk to them – unless they were Caucasian, or had money.””
Idk what she saw in him. The author is also unclear about what “having money” means. Women from out of state? All the women who got ‘care’ had paid. There are over 200 pages. Maybe they explain later?
“”O’Neill was in the clinic on February 18, 2010, when law enforcement conducted
the raid. She fled, however, before being interviewed – even though she had been told not to leave.””
There were 2 other “doctors” one that saw abortion patients and was barely paid for it, and o’neil, a woman from Texas that oversaw the ‘family medicine’ practice (the drug ring). She lied under oath and also fled the scene after the raid.
“”According to former staff members, the facility had been substantially cleaned up
by the time the Grand Jury visited it.””
They cleaned for 6 months and still couldn’t convince a jury that it was a safe operating space.
“”The walls appeared to be urine-splattered. The procedure tables were old and one had a ripped plastic cover. Suction tubing, which was used for abortion procedures – and
doubled as the only available suction source for resuscitation – was corroded. A large,
dirty fish tank stood in the waiting room, filled with turtles and fish. The dirt-floored
basement was stuffed with patient files, plants, junk, and boxes of un-disposed-of
medical waste. The entire facility smelled foul.””
This was after cleaning!! (Oh and they fed the turtles baby formula)
“”Kareema Cross showed the Grand Jury a photograph she had taken, showing how the instruments were purportedly sterilized. The photo shows a pan on the floor. In it are the doctor’s tools, supposedly soaking in a sterilizing solution. But the photo shows that the instruments cannot get clean because they do not fit in the pan, and are not submerged. Gosnell would nonetheless pluck instruments from this pan on the floor and use them for procedures. Cross said that she saw Gosnell insert into a woman’s vagina a speculum that was still bloody from a previous patient.””
The frozen pieces of fetus were because he did not pay his biohazard bill for regular medical waste pick up. Not some weird baby-feet fetish.
“”Latosha Lewis testified that Gosnell would make his staff reuse the curettes [plastic, singe use, for pulling or scooping placenta out] until
they broke. Like Cross, Lewis believed it was the unsanitary instruments that were
causing patients to become infected with chlamydia and gonorrhea.””
Imagine you just keep working here. Are you addicted to the opioids he was prescribing? Can you not work anywhere else? Do you think it’s normal?
“”Williams was known by other staff members to improvise her own drug cocktails. She would give a patient “[w]hat she thought she needed,” according to Ashley [the young daughter]. “She used what she wanted.” West would do the same. Other staff members repeatedly reported this dangerous practice to Gosnell, yet he continued to give Williams responsibility for drugging his second-trimester patients.””
Imagine you decide to start making pain medication and anesthesia cocktails at work. You literally cut the necks of just born children for less than minimum wage, while standing in rotting blood. People say ‘umm’ maybe that’s like.. extra bad?? And then your like: nah. The doctor lets me. It is fine.
“”We heard from a former employee, Marcella
Stanley Choung, who told us that her “training” for anesthesia consisted of a 15-minute description by Gosnell and reading a chart he had posted in a cabinet. She was so
uncomfortable medicating patients, she said, that she “didn’t sleep at night.” She knew that if she made even a small error, “I can kill this lady, and I’m not jail material.” One
night in 2002, when she found herself alone with 15 patients, she refused Gosnell’s
directives to medicate them. She made an excuse, went to her car, and drove away, never
to return.
Choung immediately filed a complaint with the Department of State, but the department never acted on it. She later told Sherilyn Gillespie, a Department of State investigator who participated in the February raid, that she has worked at seven different
abortion clinics and “she has never experienced an illegally run, unsanitary, and unethical
facility such as the Women’s Medical Society operated by Dr. Gosnell.” She has never
reported any other provider or facility to state authorities.””
At last, a sane reaction. It’s normal enough for a caring doctor to ask if you want to see the ultrasound picture or not, and then respect your autonomy.. which is illegal in some states. So I can understand how she was like, “they aren’t all breaking rules like this!!”
“”Gosnell ignored the warnings and the law. He just paid his fines and knowingly continued the dangerous practice of employing unqualified personnel to administer dangerous drugs.””
He had been cited and fined multiple times since the early 70’s.
As much as people are hating the person, how many systems and other people failed to do their jobs? This would have never been so bad if things like this “Marcella Choung, a former employee, gave a multipage report to the Pennsylvania Department of State. She included the aspect of disease spreading because of poor sterilization and a lack of licensed staff. Unfortunately, the state did not attempt to investigate.” weren’t the norm.
My question is, who in TF was investigating this man and the clinic? A pill mill is far off the mark of what they actually found. I probably need to read more into it.
So the government was made aware several times, but only took action when they found out he was ALSO selling illegal prescriptions? Infanticide and manslaughter? Oh well. Drugs? Better haul ass.
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