State officials and seedy abortion mills

On October 9, 2002, the Professional Underwriters Liability Insurance Company reported to theState Board of Medicine that it had paid a $400,000 settlement to the family of Semika Shaw, a 22- year-old who died following an abortion at Kermit Gosnell’s "house of horrors" in March of 2000. The report noted that, “Autopsy report indicated perforation of cervix into uterus. Heirs alleged our insured improperly performed the termination procedure and failed to diagnose post-op uterine perforation resulting in sepsis and death.” The Department had received a detailed complaint the previous December informing them of appalling conditions and about the patient's death.

The October 9 report wasn't even logged  in as “received” by the  “Complaints Office” until December 6, 2002. 

In January if 2003, the Pennsylvania Medical Professional Liability Catastrophe Loss Fund reported to the Department of State that it had paid an additional $500,000 to the family, thus reminding Department employees of the situation.

The file showed no further activity until January 2, 2004 – when a one-page printout of Gosnell’s license information is stamped “received” by the complaints office.

The next action recorded in the file is a “Prosecution Evaluation,” dated April 29, 2004, in which Mark Greenwald, a prosecuting attorney for the Board of Medicine purportedly summarizes the case concluding that no action was necessary. This is all it said:

Brief Factual Summary: The file was opened as a result of a Medical Malpractice Payment Report. The underlying malpractice case involved the death of a 22 year old female following the termination of her 5th pregnancy. Following a seemingly routine procedure on 3/1/02, the patient was taken to the ER at the University of Pennsylvania with complaints of pain and heavy bleeding. The patient underwent surgery but the surgeon was unable to locate any perforation and the patient died from infection and sepsis. Although the incident is tragic, especially in light of the age of the patient, the risk was inherent with the procedure performed by Respondent [Gosnell] and administrative action against respondent’s license is not warranted. RECOMMENDATION: Z-02, Prosecution not Warranted

Greenwald’s supervisor, Charles J. Hartwell, the Senior Prosecutor-in-Charge at the Department of State’s Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs, reviewed Greenwald’s “evaluation” and approved it on May 14, 2004.  On that same date, the Department closed the case on the complaint brought to them in December of 2001 by former Gosnell employee Marcella Stanley Choung informing them:

• that Gosnell was using her and other unlicensed workers to administer IV anesthesia
• that they were administering this anesthesia when neither Gosnell nor anybody else qualified to supervise anesthesia was at the clinic
• that two sickly, vomiting, flea-infested cats had run of the clinic, including the procedure rooms
• that the autoclave for sterilizing instruments was broken
• that Gosnell re-used single-use instruments
• that Gosnell would perform forced abortions on underage girls at their parents' request
• about the death the previous year of Semika Shaw
• about the "pill mill" Gosnell was running from the clinic
• that one patient and another employee would be willing to talk to them and verify what she was telling them

 Their entire investigation into Choung's complaint had consisted of three phone calls, none of them to the people Choung said could substantiate her claims. There was no visit to the clinic and no request to review patient files. The complaint was not even forwarded to the Department of Health, which was responsible for licensing and inspecting clinics.

Not that this would have accomplished anything: The DOH had first inspected and given a 12-month license to Gosnell's clinic in 1979, in spite of numerous and alarming shortcomings, and didn't review the clinic again until 1989, when it was again permitted to stay open in spite of multiple shortcomings that clearly endangered patients. They repeated this type of review in 1992, again approving the facility in spite of appalling conditions, and in 1993 they reported that previous deficiencies had been corrected, despite continuing deplorable conditions,because of a new politically-motivated policy not to inspect abortion clinics unless they'd gotten a complaint.

Drug dosage chart created c. 1995 by 15-year-old
Ashley Baldwin for use by other staff
at Gosnell's clinic.

They did not enter the clinic again until they were invited to do so by the DEA and Philadelphia DA for the drug raid in 2010. In the 16 years since the new head-in-the-sand policy, they had failed to investigate after receiving at least 6 serious complaints including two reports of patient deaths.

And in spite of this egregious example of state official repeatedly and deliberately turning a blind eye in spite of substantial evidence, abortion-rights advocates continue to insist that if a state authority gives an abortion facility an all-clear, then all is well regardless of how well substantiated any outside reports might be. And in states that try to pass and enforce laws cleaning up seedy abortion clinics, abortion-rights advocates continue to play Pollyanna and fight in favor of abortion practitioners to be as nasty as they wanna be. I've dubbed this "access uber all" mentality "the Compton-Carr Effect" after its most eloquent advocate, Janis Compton-Carr of the Florida Abortion Council.

Until citizens -- especially prochoice citizens -- start holding abortion-rights groups, politicians, bureaucrats, and even media accountable, appalling conditions will continue to be permitted, and women will continue to suffer and die.

It's about time women's lives became at least as worthy of preservation as "abortion access."

Semika Shaw and Why the Gosnell Story Must be Told

On April 29, 2004, Mark Greenwald, a prosecuting attorney for the Pennsylvania Board of Medicine filed a one-paragraph "Prosecution Evaluation" in a matter referred to the Board concerning Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who for decades had operated a filthy, dangerous abortion clinic in Philadelphia:

Brief Factual Summary: The file was opened as a result of a Medical Malpractice Payment Report. The underlying malpractice case involved the death of a 22 year old female following the termination of her 5th pregnancy. Following a seemingly routine procedure on 3/1/02, the patient was taken to the ER at the University of Pennsylvania with complaints of pain and heavy bleeding. The patient underwent surgery but the surgeon was unable to locate any perforation and the patient died from infection and sepsis. Although the incident is tragic, especially in light of the age of the patient, the risk was inherent with the procedure performed by Respondent [Gosnell] and administrative action against respondent’s license is not warranted.

RECOMMENDATION: Z-02, Prosecution not Warranted

The "22 year old female" in question was Semika Shaw. To get an idea of how slovenly the Medical Board's investigation was, please note that Semika underwent the fatal abortion in March of 2000. The Board didn't even get the year right when reviewing this death before blowing the entire matter off, just over four years after the fact. 

Had they bothered to actually investigate, what would the Board have learned? I'll let her cousin, Pennsylvania Representative Margo Davidson, explain what happened in their family the fateful day that Semika paid the ultimate price for entrusting herself to Kermit Gosnell:


The Grand Jury Report on Kermit Gosnell noted:

Before Department of State prosecutors decided not to investigate the 22-year-old patient’s death, they had been told of Gosnell’s many illegal practices. What makes these prosecutors’ inaction even more astonishing is that they did know more than the bare facts included in the Board attorney’s evaluation of the case. On the same day in 2004 that they decided not to do anything about Semika Shaw’s death, these same two prosecutors also closed the investigation into the complaint brought to the Department of State more than two years earlier by Marcella Stanley Choung. That was the complaint that had alerted the Board of Medicine – eight years before Karnamaya Mongar died – to almost all of the same violations revealed by this Grand Jury’s investigation.

In December of 2001, Ms. Choung had filed a detailed, written complaint about Gosnell to the Department of State. In march of 2002, she testified in a follow-up interview. As the Grand Jury Report noted:

She informed the department investigator that Gosnell was using unlicensed workers (including herself) to give IV anesthesia to patients when he was not at the clinic; that his facility was filthy; that two sick, flea-infested cats roamed freely in the procedure rooms, vomiting throughout; that Gosnell ate in the procedure rooms; that the autoclave used to sterilize instruments was broken; that he reused single-use curettes; that there were no licensed nurses at the facility when IV anesthesia was administered; that Gosnell allowed one patient to use her cousin’s insurance card to pay for an abortion; that Gosnell performed abortions on “underage children” against their will if their mothers asked him to; and that he performed other abortions without consent forms.

The "investigation" into Ms. Choung's report consisted of three phone calls. Nobody visited the clinic. Nobody interviewed the employees. Nobody contacted the patient who had given Ms. Choung permission to share her contact information with the state. All that came of it was a recommendation -- which was never followed up -- that the Department of Health should inspect the facility.

Nobody did until after a drug raid in February of 2010, a decade after Semika's death, several months after the death of Karnamaya Mongar, and after the murders of Baby Boy A and at least seven (perhaps hundreds of) other live-born infants, blew the lid off. It was only when the District Attorney of Philadelphia was alerted that anybody -- anybody -- took steps to finally shut down Kermit Gosnell's "house of horrors."

Gosnell was able to get away with what he did because of calculated decisions by abortion-rights activists to turn a blind eye. I've dubbed this phenomenon "the Compton-Carr Effect," after its most straightforward proponent: Janis Compton-Carr of the Florida Abortion Council. After the Miami Herald exposed a nasty abortion mill featuring many of the same kinds of deplorable conditions found at Gosnell's clinic -- dirty instruments, untrained staff, illegal peddling of narcotics -- Compton-Carr said, "In my gut, I am completely aghast at what goes on at that place. But I staunchly oppose anything that would correct this situation in law."

Fortunately, thanks to the internet and crowdfunding, we can bypass the abortion lobby's cheerleaders in Hollywood and the mainstream media. Filmmakers Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, along with journalist Magdalena Segieda, are raising $2.1 million to produce a movie about the Kermit Gosnell debacle. So far over 15,000 people have made contributions, from $1 to $10,000, in order to see this important project come to fruition. As of this writing, they are just a bit shy of $1.5 million, just over 70% of the way there, with two weeks left to reach their goal. This is a fixed funding project -- meaning that if the entire $2.1 million is not funded, all of the money will have to be returned and the project will die on the vine.

I'm asking all of my readers to do what they can -- remember that even a $1 donation is a message to the abortion lobby's lapdogs -- that the truth can not be hidden any longer. And whether or not you can chip in financially -- and always be able to say with pride that you were part of dragging this dark story into the light -- you can still do two vital things: spread the word, and pray.

Go to GosnellMovie.com to learn more and to help make sure there are no more Kermit Gosnells, no more dead women, no more slaughtered infants.

For more about why it's vital that this movie be made, read:

• 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, and 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
• Why the Left must Censor us on Gosnell: The "Outlier" Lie
• "Snipping" and why the Left Must Silence Us on Gosnell