Abortion

At the time, it must have seemed like the ultimate work-study program. Ashley Baldwin, a 15-year-old sophomore at University City High School who was thinking of becoming a doctor, got a job at one of the busiest clinics in West Philadelphia. She was paid, and in no time went from answering phones to doing ultrasounds, administering intravenous medicine, and, ultimately, assisting in abortions performed by her mentor, Kermit Gosnell. Now 22 and the mother of a 2-year-old son, Baldwin on Thursday told a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury hearing Gosnell's murder trial of her unusual hands-on medical apprenticeship.

Trying to counter testimony that Kermit Gosnell's late-term abortions killed live babies, the abortion doctor's attorney argued Wednesday that moving, aborted fetuses were "already dead. " Jack McMahon pressed his defense theory to defuse Tuesday's gruesome testimony by ex-clinic worker Lynda Williams. Testifying under a plea agreement with prosecutors, Williams, 44, had told the Common Pleas Court jury of a time when she followed Gosnell's practice of "snipping" the spines of late-term fetuses born alive during abortions.

Outside Kermit Gosnell's Women's Medical Society clinic in West Philadelphia, prosecutors would eventually call what went on there murder. Inside the red-brick property it was "routine procedure. " "Did you know it was murder?" Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore asked ex-clinic worker Lynda Williams, referring to the clinic's practice of "snipping" the spines of babies born live during abortion procedures. "No, I didn't," said Williams, 44, who told the Philadelphia jury hearing Gosnell's murder trial on Tuesday that the doctor's "standard procedure" was to "ensure fetal demise.

Kermit Gosnell had been Sherry West's doctor for more than 20 years and gave her a job when she was ill and out of work. Still, West testified, she hated working in the room where Gosnell performed abortions - never more than the night a staffer asked for help with a problem at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society clinic in West Philadelphia. "There was this clear glass pan, and I saw it, and I thought, 'What do you expect me to do?' " West testified Monday at Gosnell's murder trial.

KERMIT GOSNELL, the former Philadelphia abortion doctor on trial for allegedly killing seven viable babies and a woman who died after a botched abortion, was slammed by pro-life activists Thursday as a racist against his own black community, and as its "angel of death" for becoming rich from aborting primarily black babies. The rally in front of the city's criminal justice center came on the same day that one of Gosnell's former employees testified about "beheading" babies in the disgraced doctor's West Philadelphia abortion clinic.

By Marybeth T. Hagan One protester's homespun sign struck me in 2003 when I first attended a March for Life in Washington. The raggedy brown piece of cardboard bore an indelible black-markered message that read, "1787 - We the People" and "1973 - We the Supreme Court. " The activist noted that thanks to the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, "We the People" secured "the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity. " That liberty includes a voice in public policy via our elected officials.

The leaders of two black anti-abortion groups today denounced West Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell as a "racist of the worst kind" and a "butcher who preyed on the women and girls of his own race. " Day Gardner, president of the Washington-based National Black Pro-Life Union and the Rev. Clenard Howard Childress Jr. of Learn Northeast, based in Montclair, N.J. spoke to reporters outside the Criminal Justice Center in Center City as Gosnell's murder trial continued inside.

Though Karen Feisullin has been a doctor since 2002, the yellowing ultrasound machine taken three years ago from the West Philadelphia abortion clinic of Kermit Gosnell was like nothing she had ever encountered. "I've never seen anything this old - this is an old machine," Feisullin, an obstetrician-gynecologist, told Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron. Cameron called Feisullin as the prosecution's first witness Tuesday in Gosnell's murder trial, now in its third week before a Common Pleas Court jury.