A former patient says the doctor botched her abortion and one of the father of one of the other accused workers at the clinic defends his daughter.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the West Philly abortion doctor whose regular method of getting rid of unwanted pregnancies was to allegedly induce labor and snap the spinal cord of a newly-born, writhing baby with a pair of scissors, was arraigned and held without bail Thursday.
Gosnell was charged with the murder of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar and seven babies Wednesday.
Two of Gosnell’s unlicensed and untrained staff, Adrienne Moton and Lynda Williams, who allegedly helped in these gruesome baby killings at Women’s Medical Society on Lancaster Avenue, were also arraigned and held without bail Thursday.
Gosnell and his staff’s alleged crimes read like a gory horror film script in the 261-page grand jury report, which says that the 69-year-old and his staff killed at least two women and hundreds of babies born in his clinic over the 30 years Gosnell practiced.
Gosnell was the “go-to” guy for late-term abortions, and he often performed illegal abortion past 24-weeks of pregnancy. Authorities say he made as much as $1.8 million in one year.
In addition to the alleged murders, Gosnell maimed countless women by perforating their uteruses and cervixes and spreading venereal diseases with filthy instruments, according to the grand jury report.
Perhaps more disturbing than an alleged sociopathic doctor who told his staff that babies’ movements after birth were “reflexes,” and that shoving scissors in the back of the neck of a breathing child was “standard procedure,” is the fact that this group of people believed and accepted Gosnell’s practices and allegedly followed suit.
The only time some of them questioned his method was when Gosnell allegedly killed a baby boy that was so large its legs and arms hung over the shoe box in which Gosnell threw him. Gosnell joked that the baby could have “walked him to the bus stop,” staff testified. It was only then that three of the employees felt something was wrong and took a picture of the baby.
While the estimated six-pound baby was visibly breathing “the doctor just slit the neck,” said Kareema Cross. When asked why she and two other employees took a picture of the baby, Cross told the grand jury:
“Because it was big and it was wrong and we knew it. We knew something was wrong.”
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But they still did not report any wrongdoing.
Also among Gosnell’s staff arraigned Thursday was Tina Baldwin on $150,000 bail; Madline Joe on $250,000 bail; Elizabeth Hampton on $250,000 bail; Eileen O’Neil on $1 million bail; Pearl Gosnell on $1 million and Sherry West on $2 million. Steven Massof has not yet been arraigned.
