"Stand up! It don't hurt that bad!" he yelled at her, she said, before suctioning - without any medication - her insides.
In 2001, Davida Johnson changed her mind about aborting her 6-month fetus after seeing Gosnell's dazed, bloodied patients in his recovery room, she said. But in the treatment room, Gosnell's staffers ignored her protests, smacked her, tied her arms down and sedated her into unconsciousness, she said. She awoke no longer pregnant.
Weeks later, she said, she was diagnosed with a venereal disease that she believes she contracted from unsterilized equipment Gosnell used. Now, she can't carry a baby to term and said she has miscarried four times since her abortion.
One day after a grand jury issued a hefty report charging Gosnell with eight counts of murder stemming from his West Philadelphia practice, Reid, Gaither, Johnson and other women stepped forward yesterday to share stories of horrors they had hidden for years, unaware that they were part of a sisterhood of suffering.
"It was my first - and last - abortion. I didn't know it [Gosnell's treatment of her] wasn't OK," said Gaither, now 38, of Southwest Philadelphia.
Reid said she tried to report Gosnell.
"I called all kinds of 1-800 numbers, abortion hot lines. Not one person I talked to could give me any advice on what to do about the doctor," said Reid, now 28, of Northeast Philadelphia. "I was 15; I didn't know what else to do."
That Gosnell was able to practice so long, leaving such a wide wake of misery, is no surprise to some of his former patients. Abortion, some say, carries such a stigma that they were too ashamed to report their alleged mistreatment.
