Gosnell: The Untold Story - Nasty Discoveries, Contra-Indicated Drugs, Lost Doctors, and More

I'm still working on Gosnell: The Untold Story of America's Most Prolific Serial Killer, by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer. As I listen, I'm blogging about relevant material that I know from over 35 years of abortion research. Links to previous commentaries are at the bottom of this post.

Family and Friends

The stories of family and friends finding their loved ones in terrible condition, sometimes near death, just strike me as par for the course. I can remember a few instances in fatal cases, such as Sharon Hamplton and Kelly Morse, but trying to bring a specific injury case to mind is like trying to remember all of the times you've seen trash by the side of the highway. It's just too common to make a specific impression. 

Quitting and Reporting

Marcella Choung walked away from Gosnell's clinic and reported him to the state officials. This reminds me of a situation we had at Life Dynamics.

Lawson Akpulonu

I took a call from a nurse who told me that she'd thought stories of nasty abortion clinics were just something right-to-lifers made up, but she'd been hired off the street to work at a clinic and left the same day. She'd seen our contact information on a flier and wanted to know if we'd help her report the clinic to the medical board. While Scott was helping her to put her complaint together, we got a call from Diane Sawyer's people wanting in formation about abortion clinics selling abortions to women who weren't actually pregnant. (This was in the days before home pregnancy tests.) We asked the nurse if she'd be willing to talk to Sawyer and she said absolutely yes. We provided Sawyer's people with a real scoop -- a complaint that was about to be sent but that the medical board hadn't received yet, and a chance to talk to the woman herself. Sawyer's people got back to us to say she'd decided that it was "a non-story." This was Lawson Akpulonu, who actually had been raping his patients in addition to running a nasty abortion mill. 

Contra-indicated Drugs

One patient told Gosnell that she was using Methadone, but he doped her up anyway, nearly killing her. This puts me in mind of Diane Boyd, whose mother told high-profile abortionist Robert Crist about her medications, only to have him administer drugs that interacted with them and caused her death. Kelly Morse told staff at Hillcrest that she was allergic to the "caine" drugs, but they administered them anyway with fatal results. Hillview didn't even bother to screen Debra Gray for possible drug use before having an unqualified staff administer a lethal dose of anesthesia.

The Lost Doctor

When the nurse from the children's vaccination program went to the clinic to meet with Gosnell, the staff couldn't find him. That puts me in mind of National Abortion Federation member Eastern Women's Center, where Dawn Ravenell, Dawn Mack, and Venus Ortiz underwent their fatal abortions. During a four-day state survey (which, BTW, uncovered many appalling deficiencies) the facility staff were unable to locate their medical director.

The Nasty Refrigerator

Rajanna's fridge

The vaccine program nurse was also appalled by the disgusting array of biohazardous material kept in the freezer with the vaccines. Abortion clinics are infamous for nasty refrigerators. 

Inspectors found blood and food stored together in William Malcom Knarr's clinic refrigerator. The fridge at Benjamin Thamrong's clinic contained expired medications, three syringes, a dirty carving knife, a specimen envelope containing a tube of blood collected 22 days earlier, a mostly-eaten salad, a partially empty bottle each of Coca Cola and Sunkist soda, a bottle of Yoo Yoo, a half-full bottle of Riuniti peach wine, and a quarter-full bottle of Asti Spumante with a paper towel stuffed in the top. In Krishna Rajanna's clinic fridge, police found Styrofoam cups containing fetal remains in the same refrigerator where the employees kept their food. (More than one employee told police that they had seen Rajanna heat the contents of the Styrofoam cups and dump them into his lunch.)

Refusing Reversal

"Sandy" changed her mind about going through with the abortion after Gosnell had inserted the laminaria. He refused to remove them and told her she would not get a refund. This is another common theme.

In one National Abortion Federation tape, I heard NAF member Douglas "The Texas Gosnell" Karpen complain that prolifers were stealing his patients by taking them to have the laminaria removed after they'd changed their minds. One patient, Nicolette C., was taken to a hospital by her mother after Karpen and another doctor at his clinic insisted that removing the laminaria would kill her; Nicolette had the laminaria removed but the damage had been done; she gave birth to a baby that subsequently died due to prematurity.

A woman named Nikki said that she asked doctors at NAF member Mayfair Women's Clinic (where Christi Stile's eventually fatal abortion was performed) to remove the laminaria. They not only refused, she said, but physically restrained her and threatened to have her hospitalized for being suicidal if she didn't go through with the abortion. They eventually released her and she was able to have her baby.

Tamiia Russell bled to death after NAF member Alberto "Licensed to Lie" Hodari refused to remove the laminaria after she had changed her mind.


Prior posts:

* Miscellaneous from Chapter Three
* The Visitor from the National Abortion Federation
* Experts, Resistance, and Enabling
* Desiree Hawkins: The Foot in the Jar
* Why I Want to Slap the Medical Examiner
* Politics and the SCOTUS
* Unqualified Staff and More
* Gruesome Discoveries and Drug Dealing
* The Courage of Detective Wood
* Reflections of the Preface
* Anger and Law-Breaking
* The Media and Abortion Horrors
* Why I Have Anything to Add