Late Term Abortions

The grand jury called it "a baby charnel house. " For more than 30 years, Kermit Gosnell ran an abortion clinic in West Philadelphia that was the "go-to" place for women wanting illegal late-term abortions or for people seeking no-questions-asked prescription drugs, according to a grand jury. Here are some highlights from the jury's report: Gosnell performed thousands of abortions at his Women's Medical Society at 38th Street and Lancaster Avenue, even though he was a family practitioner never certified as an obstetrician or gynecologist.

It's one of the macabre mysteries in the case of Kermit Gosnell: Why did the West Philadelphia abortion doctor keep the severed feet of fetuses preserved in specimen jars? In testimony Tuesday, Adrienne Moton, a former worker at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society, told a Philadelphia jury that Gosnell once explained that he did so in case patients requested them for future identification or DNA samples. But an expert on fetal development, testifying Wednesday at Gosnell's abortion-murder trial, said that was news to him. "Do you think there is any medical reason to save the foot of a baby?"

Gosnell. For some Philadelphians, the name conjures up images of the Women's Medical Society, the barbarous "house of horrors" where jailed abortion doctor and accused pill-pusher Kermit Barron Gosnell allegedly delivered babies and killed them by severing their spinal cords with scissors. It apparently doesn't play well on a resume, either. Barron Alexander Gosnell, the doc's 20-year-old son, recently filed a petition in Common Pleas Court to change his name, saying his father's name is hurting his job prospects.

It's one of the macabre mysteries in the case of Kermit Gosnell: Why did the West Philadelphia abortion doctor keep the severed feet of fetuses preserved in specimen jars? In testimony Tuesday, Adrienne Moton, a former worker at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society, told a Philadelphia jury that Gosnell once explained that he did so in case patients requested them for future identification or DNA samples. But an expert on fetal development, testifying Wednesday at Gosnell's abortion-murder trial, said that was news to him. "Do you think there is any medical reason to save the foot of a baby?"

THE JURY IN the Kermit Gosnell capital-murder trial ended a fifth day of deliberations yesterday without reaching a verdict. The panel of seven women and five men will resume work this morning, Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Minehart said. Earlier yesterday, the jurors asked Minehart to re-read the definitions of the charges of first-degree murder, third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and infanticide. They also asked for the definition of malice. Minehart also asked the jurors whether any of them had seen a Fox News documentary about Gosnell that aired Friday and over the weekend.

As he sticks to his guns on the issue of late-term abortions, the saying "With friends like these, who need enemies?" must occur to President Clinton. His allies in the pro-choice movement have been hurting their own cause. First they lied, then they denied they lied, and then one of them admitted he lied. It has taken the abortion-rights crowd to make Clinton seem a pillar of principle and consistency. But he is on this issue. The question is not - and has never been - whether there are a handful of these abortions, as the pro-choice movement initially maintained, or thousands of them, as pro-life organizations and others assert.

Abortion is an issue that must be addressed on the basis of ethics, not law. I say that not just because reproduction is such a deeply private and personal matter. Another reason is that medicine and science are changing the nature and circumstances of abortion. As new forms of controlling reproduction appear, the only way to stop a woman from choosing an abortion will be to present a moral argument that she finds persuasive. If you doubt that is so, consider the hotly contested political issue of third-trimester abortions.

After seven years as a biochemical researcher, years more dabbling as a partner in a Charlottesville, Va., bar, and medical school in the Caribbean island of Grenada, Steve Massof said it was time to go to his "backup plan" - become a doctor. But finding a medical residency program was tough for someone looking in the "offseason" and just starting to take the licensing exams. Then, Massof said, his brother-in-law, a pharmaceutical firm representative, told him about a West Philadelphia doctor he regularly visited: Kermit Gosnell.

With equipment from one of Kermit Gosnell's abortion procedure rooms arranged in the courtroom before her, a former clinic worker tearfully described how she and Gosnell "snipped" the necks of infants born during late-term abortions. Adrienne Moton told the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury hearing Gosnell's murder trial Tuesday morning that during the three years she worked at his West Philadelphia clinic she "couldn't give you a number" for how many times the 72-year-old doctor used the "snipping" technique.

A former employee and patient who got abortions from Dr. Kermit Gosnell gave a Philadelphia jury Tuesday a graphic and sometimes grisly inside view of his West Philadelphia clinic. Adrienne Moton, 35, told the jury how she obtained two abortions from Gosnell as a teenager. She said she also lived with his family for a time before becoming a volunteer and then employee at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society. Though she had only a high school diploma, Moton described how Gosnell trained her to do ultrasound exams of patients, administer pre-surgical sedation, and assist in illegal late-term abortions.

CHRISTINE Flowers has long been an advocate for the unborn. For all the common ground that so-called pro-choice and pro-life advocates found in the case of the Gosnell house of horrors, it took a historic jury verdict to make everyone face facts. As Ms. Flowers correctly states in her column "This jury saw the truth," this was a case of infanticide. The only defense that Gosnell had was that the abortion-inducing drug did not properly kill those babies while they were still in utero.

By Jennifer Rubin After Newtown, President Obama spoke to the nation and launched a campaign for gun control. He ultimately failed, but there was a tragic event, a political response, and a result. As for the Kermit Gosnell trial, there has been virtually no political response to the horrors described in the grand jury report and subsequent trial. Unlike with Tucson, Newtown, Colorado, and many other shooting incidents, the president didn't want to comment on the trial or even on the broader topic of late-term abortion.

Outside the Women's Medical Society, a small pot of dying white mums sat by the entrance of the three-story brick building on Lancaster Avenue where Kermit Gosnell practiced for 31 years. On the front window sill, someone had glued dozens of tiny white plaster baby hands. Passersby expressed mixed views after the guilty verdict was announced Monday in the trial of Gosnell, a fixture in the West Philadelphia neighborhood once known for his good deeds. Along Lancaster Avenue at 38th Street, about three blocks from the Drexel University campus, students live alongside longtime residents.

THE JURY IN the Kermit Gosnell capital-murder trial ended a fifth day of deliberations yesterday without reaching a verdict. The panel of seven women and five men will resume work this morning, Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Minehart said. Earlier yesterday, the jurors asked Minehart to re-read the definitions of the charges of first-degree murder, third-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and infanticide. They also asked for the definition of malice. Minehart also asked the jurors whether any of them had seen a Fox News documentary about Gosnell that aired Friday and over the weekend.

No doubt the 2014 race for Pennsylvania governor will contain plenty of debate about jobs, jobs, and jobs. That's no surprise, since the economy ranks at the top of the list of issues state voters tell pollsters they care about most. And yet the emotional issue of abortion, always lurking in politics but thrust into renewed prominence recently, may wind up haunting Gov. Corbett's reelection campaign. Consider the trial of physician Kermit Gosnell, accused of four counts of first-degree murder for allegedly killing babies born alive after late-term abortions at his Women's Medical Society clinic in West Philadelphia.

JACK McMAHON, the often explosive and combative lawyer for accused baby-killer Dr. Kermit Gosnell, rested his case yesterday without as much as a whimper. Without calling Gosnell, 72, to the witness stand, nor anyone else to speak in his defense, McMahon rose from his seat just after 1:30 p.m. and announced that he was resting his case. Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Minehart then informed the jury that the next step in the capital-murder trial would be closing arguments on Monday.

Prosecutors say they will finish their case Thursday in the Philadelphia murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell. At the end of Wednesday's session, Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron told the "good news" to the Common Pleas Court jury that began hearing evidence on March 18. "That's not good news, that's great news," quipped Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart. The defense for Gosnell and codefendant Eileen O'Neill, 56, an alleged unlicensed doctor who worked in Gosnell's family practice, will begin presenting evidence Monday.

CITY PROSECUTORS rested their case against abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell on Thursday after calling to the witness stand a former employee who said she saw the doctor and his employees kill babies that were born alive. Kareema Cross, 28, said she was so appalled by Gosnell's ghoulish practices and the rundown condition of his West Philadelphia clinic that she began taking pictures of the facility and eventually reported him to the federal authorities. The former medical assistant spoke of patients being overmedicated by untrained personnel, of dirty instruments being used during abortion procedures, of how routine, illegal late-term abortions were performed and of moving and breathing babies being delivered and having their necks cut by Gosnell and other clinic employees.