Kermit Gosnell, the abortionist and convicted murderer whose “house of horrors” abortion center shocked the nation, has died in prison. He was 85 years old.
Gosnell was sentenced to life in prison in 2013 after he was convicted on three counts of murder for severing the spinal cords of late-term infants delivered alive. But a grand jury report estimated the number of newborn murders at the clinic to be in the “hundreds.” Most of the murders could not be prosecuted, because Gosnell destroyed the files, the report said.
He was also convicted of one count of manslaughter for the death of a woman who overdosed on drugs after undergoing an abortion at his clinic, and more than 200 lesser counts, including performing countless illegal late-term abortions.
Gosnell died March 1 at a hospital outside the prison system, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections. The statement did not give a cause of death. The convicted murderer had most recently been housed at the State Correctional Institution-Smithfield.
The infamous abortionist, described by some as the nation’s “most prolific serial killer,” performed abortions at his Philadelphia clinic for 30 years before his arrest. Authorities discovered the clinic’s horrific conditions thanks to a 2010 investigation of prescription drug trafficking.
His trial offered shocking evidence of the true cruelty of abortion; investigators and former employees testified that Gosnell relied on dirty instruments to perform both painful late-term abortions and born-alive abortions. Prosecutors said Gosnell kept baby body parts as “trophies” and that the clinic was foul-smelling and contained bloodstained furniture, jars of body parts, and bags and bottles of fetuses.
Former employees testified during the trial that Gosnell regularly performed illegal abortions past the state’s 24-week limit, and that the abortionist delivered babies who were still moving, whimpering or breathing and that he would then “snip” their spines.
“Gosnell routinely cracked jokes about babies whose necks he had just slit,” the grand jury found. “He treated his patients with condescension – slapping them, providing abysmal care, and often refusing even to see or talk to them – unless they were Caucasian, or had money. He yelled at and intimidated his staff. And he took advantage of poor women in desperate situations.”
Gosnell also was not a board-certified OB-GYN, the report noted, and frequently “left his clinic and his patients untended all day while he was at home, relaxing or exercising.”
Pennsylvania authorities had not conducted routine inspections of abortion clinics for 15 years when Gosnell’s clinic was finally investigate.
“With the change of administration [in 1995] from Governor [Bob] Casey [a pro-life Democrat] to Governor [Tom] Ridge [a pro-choice Republican], officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions,” the grand jury report said. “Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.”
Gosnell further pleaded guilty to 12 federal drug counts, including conspiracy to distribute pain medication and illegal distribution of oxycodone. Under the plea deal, he admitted to writing fake prescriptions and selling scripts for more than 1.4 million doses of drugs including Percocet, OxyContin and Xanax. He received an additional 30 year sentence for those charges.
Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser responded to news of Gosnell’s death in a statement on Tuesday noting he is “not an outlier among abortionists.”
“He is only one of the few to be brought to some measure of justice for black-letter crimes,” she said. “From Ulrich ‘George’ Klopfer hoarding more than 2,200 tiny bodies on his Indiana property, to Planned Parenthood being criminally referred for the harvest and sale of baby body parts, to Minnesota Democrats led by Tim Walz burying evidence of babies born alive and left to die, the corruption endemic to the brutal abortion industry is still very much alive.”
“The ripple effects of Gosnell’s slaughter of innocent Americans continue today,” she added. “His actions represent profound evil, yet like many politicians he justified them as service to the poor and held himself in esteem. And he didn’t operate in a silo. His crimes spanned 30 years because people and organizations turned a blind eye.”
Dannenfelser notes the National Abortion Federation “inspected his slaughterhouse in 2009 and denied him membership for the horrors they saw” but never reported his crimes to authorities.
“The gruesome reality of abortion in America makes many in positions of power uncomfortable,” she concluded. “But Gosnell’s legacy of awakening the public to the true horrors of abortion cannot be dismissed or ignored. As the great William Wilberforce said of the evil of the slave trade nearly two centuries ago, you may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.”