Kermit Gosnell's supposedly safe and legal abortion clinic was filthy almost beyond belief, and his practices were callous and ghoulish. He delivered babies near or even past viability alive then killed them by "snipping" their spinal cords with surgical scissors. He stockpiled their corpses in makeshift containers and hoarded their severed feet in specimen jars. He let untrained staff dope women within inches of their lives -- and in at least one case past that point -- amid fleas and cat feces. But when the story broke, a narrative to protect the reputation of American abortion practice was rapidly put into place: dismiss him as an "outlier."
This distancing displays ignorance at best, and willful lying at worst.
A look at Kermit Gosnell's timeline reveals that he was far from being an outlier. He was a respected part of the community of abortion providers even after it had become impossible to ignore how appalling his practice was.
September 13-14, 1992 and Continuing: Inspiration
The earliest known link between Gosnell and the most reputable abortion providers -- the National Abortion Federation or NAF -- goes back to September 13 - 14, 1992. That was when, according to Gosnell, he attended a National Abortion Federation Risk Management Seminar in Dallas. At that meeting, Martin Haskell shared his "Dilation and Extraction" or "D&X" procedure. It was later dubbed "partial birth abortion" because it is performed by delivering the living baby feet first, stopping the delivery while the baby's head is still in the uterus, using scissors to poke a hole in the base of the baby's skull, then suctioning the baby's brains out through the hole.
Gosnell must have at least tried to use Haskell's technique between 1992 and when the federal "Partial Birth Abortion Ban" went into effect in 2007, because at some point he told his staff that he was no longer allowed to just use the scissors; he had to inject the baby with digoxin first. (Digoxin stops the baby's heart and was used as a workaround so that the baby could still be delivered in one piece except for having a collapsed head.) According to Gosnell's employees, he lacked the skill to get the digoxin injection into the fetal heart so he eventually gave up and just delivered the babies alive, then used scissors at the base of the skull.
So Gosnell's most infamous practice, "snipping," was inspired by the cream of the crop at the National Abortion Federation.
Starting during or before 2004: Gosnell's Prestigious Employment
Some time around or before 2004, Kermit Gosnell began working one day a week at a National Abortion Federation member, Atlantic Women's Medical Services. Atlantic had facilities in both Wilmington and Dover, Delaware, and it seems that Gosnell worked at both locations.
A woman who believed NAF's promises of safety would make an appointment at this reputable clinic, which would collect her fee and then turn her over to Gosnell's care. Her abortion would be started at the NAF clinic, after which the woman would be given an appointment to have her abortion completed at Gosnell's own facility, where she would be drugged within inches of her life by people who didn't even finish high school, then left to moan and writhe on a blood-stained recliner amid the cat feces.
This relationship can't be described as "outlier." It was "employee."
Ongoing - Example from December, 2009: Referrals From the Cream of the Crop
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| Desiree Hawkins |
She found the facility’s layout confusing, and was concerned that patients could not find their way around it or out of it. She was also concerned that there were plants everywhere, including in the procedure room and rooms designated as “labs.” Most alarming was the bed where Gosnell told her out-of-state patients were allowed to spend the night. These patients were unattended and it was difficult to locate the bathroom facilities and the exits. Such a practice does not meet NAF protocols. The NAF evaluator watched a few first-trimester procedures. She noticed that no one was monitoring or taking vital signs of patients who were sedated during procedures. She asked Gosnell about the pulse oximeter that should have been used for monitoring, but he told her it was broken. ....The evaluator did note, however, that while she was talking to Gosnell in his office, a patient appeared to have been sedated by one of the staff. ....
Anesthesia chart for the clinic The level of medication administered was also troubling to the evaluator. She testified that Gosnell’s own description of the effects of his routine second-trimester dose – that the patient would feel no pain at all – was a description of deep sedation. She added: “that … would really not be a safe situation … for him to be handling himself.” She explained that when deep sedation or general anesthesia is administered, NAF standards not only require that the doctor performing the procedure be present when the anesthesia is administered, they also require that another doctor or an anesthesiologist administer the sedation and monitor the patient. Instead, Gosnell had Lynda Williams, Sherry West, and his other unlicensed workers routinely administer anesthesia without proper supervision or appropriate monitoring of patients. ....The evaluator noted that Pennsylvania requires that anesthesia be administered only by licensed personnel, a regulation that Gosnell failed to follow even during the NAF review. Aside from these life-threatening practices, the evaluator noted numerous deficiencies in the clinic’s recordkeeping, including no notation of RH blood-typing and no record of sedation medications administered or the level of sedation. .... Even with the evaluator watching, patients were not being informed of the risks of the medications, the sedation, or the procedure itself. ...."Throughout the office, there were patient charts everywhere. On desks, on this – the area in that upstairs sleeping area by the sleeping room. There were piles and piles and piles of medical records. That was – if that were in an area that was closed off and nobody had access to it, charts being stored there weren’t a big deal, but if there were patients in the sleeping room, who had to leave there to go to the restroom, they had full access to all of these people’s medical information if they wanted to look through it, it was very, very concerning to me."
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| Procedure room table in Gosnell's clinic |
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| Atlantic Women's Medical Services |
We recommend that NAF reassess the membership of Atlantic Women’s Medical Services, the Delaware abortion clinic where Gosnell worked part-time before losing his license in that state. We learned that at least six patients were referred from Atlantic to Gosnell’s clinic in Philadelphia for illegal late-term abortions. These patients paid Atlantic for late-term procedures performed by Gosnell in his Lancaster Avenue clinic. We heard evidence that Gosnell would insert laminaria in patients in Delaware and then have them come to his Philadelphia office for the abortion procedure itself. The director of Atlantic Women’s Medical Services, Leroy Brinkley, was unconcerned. He did not properly supervise the doctors he hired as “independent contractors” to assure that they were complying with the law. Remarkably, despite Gosnell’s long time association with Atlantic, Brinkley only produced three files for patients seen by Gosnell at Brinkley’s clinic.
- 1 year, 1 month, and 14 days after the NAF inspector saw how bad Gosnell and his facility were; yet Atlantic continued to send patients there
- 1 year and 24 days after NAF rejected Gosnell's request for membership; yet Atlantic continued to hand patients off to Gosnell
- 11 months and 10 days after the raid on Gosnell's facility, yet he was still able to work at Atlantic
- 10 months and 25 days after Delaware suspended Gosnell's license, Atlantic stopped handing off patients to him, and it became unavoidably clear how poor Atlantic's vetting of their doctors was
- 9 days after the news hit the public about how bad Gosnell's clinic was -- the point at which it became clear that the "outlier" excuse was the only way to escape bad publicity
Hanan Rotem was investigated after the April 29, 1986 death of Gloria Aponte. It was discovered that he let his receptionist administer general anesthesia.Abu "The Butcher of Avenue A" Hayat was accused of sexual abuse by several patients, was responsible for the malpractice death of 17-year-old Sophie McCoy in 1990, and became infamous when he tore the arm off Ana Rosa Rodriguez during a third-trimester abortion attempt in 1991.Robert Crist has three known dead patients to his discredit: Diane Boyd, an intellectually-disabled rape victim who died after a drug error in 1981; Latachie Veal, age 17, who bled to death in 1991; and Nichole Williams, who bled to death in 1997.Family Planning Associates Medical Group has the following dead patients that I, personally, have learned about: Patricia Chacon, age 16, bled to death March 3, 1984; Mary Pena, age 43, bled to death December 16, 1984; Josefina Garcia, age 37, bled to death May 23, 1985 after FPA failed to notice that she actually had an ectopic pregnancy; Laniece Dorsey, age 17, died of anesthesia complications February 6, 1986; Joyce Ortenzio, age 32, died of septic shock June 8, 1988; Tami Suematsu, age 19, August 19, 1988; Susan Levy, age 30, died of sepsis from an incomplete abortion April 9, 1992; Deanna Bell, age 13, died of a massive overdose of anesthesia September 5, 1992; Christine Mora, age 18, died of sepsis November 8, 1994; Ta Tanisha Wesson, age 24, died of anesthesia complications January 24, 1995; Nakia Jorden, age 16, was not properly monitored while under anesthesia and died December 10, 1998; Maria Leho, age 26, died of anesthesia complications June 11, 1999; Maria Rodriguez, age 22, bled to death from a ruptured uterus March 25, 2000; Kimberly Neil, age 38, died after being improperly monitored under anesthesia May 22, 2000; Chanelle Bryant, age 22, died of sepsis from abortion pills January 14, 2004; "Kyla Ellis," age 23, bled to death May 16, 2014.
- Verified: Gosnell Got Snipping Idea at NAF Seminar
- Gosnell Clinic Even Nastier than Grand Jury Reported
- The Gosnell Patient Who Barely Escaped With Her Life
- Kermit Gosnell and the Milgram Experiment
- Gosnell: The One That Got Away & Hope for Others
- Gosnell and Viability: Where's the Line?
- Gosnell and Post-Viability Abortions
- Gosnell: Location Can Mean Misdemeanor vs. Murder
- Gosnell: The Grand Jury Convened
- Why "Gosnell" Must be Told: The Compton-Carr Effect
- "Snipping" and why the Left Must Silence Us on Gosnell
- Semika Shaw and Why the Gosnell Story Must be Told
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Veteran pro-life investigator Kevin Sherlock asks people of good will to help him have Planned Parenthood prosecuted for profiteering from the rapes and incests of underage girls many thousands of times each year.
Sherlock has pulled the police records of hundreds of cities and has pulled the child protective services records of multiple states to prove Planned Parenthood staffers are violating mandated reporting laws designed to protect girl victims. But there is more to be done. Sherlock will make sure more and more evidence gets to federal and state prosecutors who care about protecting girls from abusers and profiteers.
Thank you for doing what you can to help girls and fight sexual predators and rape profiteers.
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