Kermit Gosnell, the infamous ‘House of Horrors’ abortionist from Philadelphia, has reportedly died. He was serving three life sentences in a Pennsylvania prison for the first-degree murder of three infants born alive, the involuntary manslaughter of a woman seeking an abortion at this clinic, and other criminal charges.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, Gosnell died March 1 at a hospital outside the prison system.
His horrific abortion practice shook the nation (once the media finally began to cover his story), and it led the closing of significant loopholes in how Pennsylvania regulated abortion facilities.
“He is America’s most prolific serial killer, and yet Kermit Gosnell was no obvious criminal or nutcase. The doctor was a pillar of his community, an advocate for women’s “reproductive health,” and a respected member of Philadelphia’s elite…Gosnell was casually murdering born-alive infants, butchering women, and making a macabre collection of severed babies’ feet.” Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer
Here’s what you should know about Kermit Gosnell:
- Gosnell’s House of Horrors
Kermit Gosnell reported to the PA Department of Health over 40,000 babies aborted over the course of thirty years at his Women’s Medical Society abortion clinic in West Philadelphia. But Gosnell was known by the abortion industry as a late-term abortionist, and those practices and more were left off the books. State officials had stopped inspecting his clinic for over 17 years.
Some of these babies were horrifically stored in jars in his office. Some were barbarically murdered after being born alive.
Gosnell’s horrors cannot be forgotten. It’s why PA Family was involved in creating a documentary called 3801 Lancaster to help mark what Gosnell had done and why it was allowed to happen.
Click here to watch the award-winning documentary.
- Gosnell Grand Jury Report
On February 18, 2010, a search warrant raid on Gosnell’s clinic was conducted for illegal drug activity. Investigators found the true horrors taking place here – a late-term abortion facility with blood stained floors, urine stench in the air, semi-conscious women in the recovery room and jar after jar of fetal remains; a ‘House of Horrors’ that went uninspected for years.
The Gosnell grand jury, which covered “a spectrum of personal beliefs about the morality of abortion,” wrote a 261-page report about Gosnell, “a doctor who killed babies and endangered women.”
“The grand jury which investigated his case wanted to charge him with 200 recent murders but the move was stymied and reduced to just seven after pressure from senior political and law enforcement officials.” Ann McElhinney
An important element of this horrific story is how bureaucratic inertia enabled Gosnell’s facility to continue operations.
“[T]he Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.”
- Closing the Gosnell Loophole
One of the recommendations by the Gosnell Grand Jury was to treat abortion facilities just like any other surgical facility in the state by classifying them as ambulatory surgical facilities.
“If oversight agencies expect to prevent future Dr. Gosnells, they must find the fortitude to enact and enforce the necessary regulations. Rules must be more than words on paper. We recommend that the Pennsylvania Department of Health plug the hole it has created for abortion clinics. They should be explicitly regulated as ambulatory surgical facilities, so that they are inspected annually and held to the same standards as all other outpatient procedure centers.”
The story of how this recommendation came to fruition is remembered in Focus on the Family’s Citizen Magazine story entitled Shocked Into Action. “The state that produced one of the nation’s most infamous late-term abortionists now has one of its strongest pro-life laws.”
“In the end, the strong abortion-clinic regulations passed and Corbett signed them into law on Dec. 22, 2011. It didn’t take long for their impact to be felt. Just since the law passed, the number of abortion clinics in Pennsylvania has dropped from 22 to 17, with several either being turned down for a license or pre-emptively going out of business.”
A powerful moment in this process was hearing from former Democrat State Rep. Margo Davidson in her speech on the House floor ahead of the vote.
“I think I am the only member of this House that was directly touched by the tragedy at the Gosnell Clinic in the life of my 22-year-old cousin, Semika Shaw. And today, I honor her memory by voting YES on this legislation that seeks to safeguard the health of women that is long overdue. So that never again will a woman walk into a licensed health care facility in the state of Pennsylvania and be butchered as she was.”
Davidson joined a total of 45 Democrats to pass this Gosnell bill through the PA House in 2011. That was half of the Democrat caucus at the time, joining all but one Republican State Representative, in passing this bill through the PA House. Thankfully, the majority of the PA General Assembly did the right thing, and then-Governor Tom Corbett signed it into law.
Note: Current Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro voted against this bill, serving at the time as a State Representative.
“Until the legislature put those requirements on abortion facilities following the Gosnell scandal, abortion clinics were less regulated than nail salons in Pennsylvania. We cannot allow this horrific history to repeat itself.” Michael Geer, PA Family Institute
- Gosnell’s Five-Week Trial
Gosnell pleaded not guilty to the litany of charges against him. He rejected a plea deal. Three years after the raid on his licensed abortion facility, on March 18, 2013, he went to trial.
Click here for a detailed outline of the five-week trial.
- Media Coverage (or lack thereof)
On April 11, 2013, nearly a month into the Gosnell trial, JD Mullane, a reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times, posted a photo online that went viral. The court staff has set aside three rows of seats to accommodate dozens of reporters ahead of key witnesses in the trial. Mullane was the only reporter to show up. His viral photo was of the empty rows of chairs reserved for reporters.
The viral photo, as JD Mullane himself put it, “goated big elite media into embarrassment and shame…[the case] wasn’t getting a lot of play despite the sensational aspects of the case. This man, according to testimony and the grand jury report, if he’s convicted, will be one of the greatest mass murderers in American history.”
Additionally, what helped spark national attention was a USA Today opinion piece by Kirsten Powers that called out the lack of media coverage of Gosnell’s trial.
“Since the murder trial of Pennsylvania abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell began March 18, there has been precious little coverage of the case that should be on every news show and front page. The revolting revelations of Gosnell’s former staff, who have been testifying to what they witnessed and did during late-term abortions, should shock anyone with a heart.”
- Gosnell Conviction
On May 13, 2013, Gosnell was convicted of first-degree murder for the death of three babies that were killed after being born alive. He was also convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
- Gosnell: The Book
Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer became pro-life because of their coverage of the Gosnell trial.
“Abortion arguments from pro-abortion advocates tend to avoid any actual talk of how an abortion is done and what exactly it is that is being aborted,” observed McElhinney. “I know a lot about both now.”
McElhinney and McAleer wrote the book, Gosnell: The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer, followed by producing the Gosnell movie, one of the most successful crowdfunded films in history.
One story McElhinney and McAleer share in their book is particularly shocking, and it’s one that is not directly about Gosnell himself.
“Ironically, in a trial that featured so many graphic, gory images projected on the courtroom wall, it was an expert witness’s testimony about the realities of abortion that elicited the only audible gasps from the jury box. Dr. Charles Benjamin, an OB/GYN with thirty-three years of experience, was asked how many abortions he had performed over the course of his career. At least forty thousand, came his matter-of-fact reply. The jury was shocked. The prosecution and the defense got a glimpse of how difficult it would be to read the jury in this case.” (page 189)
Like Gosnell, abortion made Dr. Benjamin a millionaire. His clinic, Berger and Benjamin, closed in 2019 after they relinquished their registration certificate following an inspection by the PA Department of Health.
- Gosnell: Not an Outlier
David Altrogge is a filmmaker who produced the award-winning Gosnell documentary 3801 Lancaster: American Tragedy, which contains interviews with Dr. Kermit Gosnell himself and some of his patients. Altrogge was the first to interview Gosnell after his trial, conducting 20 interviews over seven months with him. (Altrogge is also referenced numerous times in the book the Gosnell movie is based on.)
“I don’t believe that Kermit Gosnell is an outlier in the abortion industry,” states Altrogge. “If you look at the amount of money he made doing what he was doing, there’s no way that he’s the only guy doing it.”
The grand jury report documented Gosnell was making between $10,000 and $15,000 a night from abortions.
As PA Family’s Dan Bartkowiak writes in The Federalist,
“As a direct result of the new abortion facilities law, five surgical abortion locations closed. Three closed voluntarily, but the other two were closed by the Pennsylvania Department of Health….The two forced to close were Allentown Medical Services and American Women’s Services, both connected to the infamous late-term abortionist Steven Brigham, whose medical license has been suspended or revoked in at least five states, including Pennsylvania…
If Pennsylvania did not pass this law, both of these facilities connected with Brigham would still be butchering women. Many have pointed to Kermit Gosnell as the reason for abortion facility improvements. While that is enough reason, Gosnell is in jail now. People like Steven Brigham are still out there operating clinics—but no longer in Pennsylvania, thanks to the improved regulation.”
“Kermit Gosnell 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. 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.” Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA Pro-Life America President
- No More Gosnells
The abortion industry continues to fight against the Gosnell protections and is working with pro-abortion lawmakers to essentially bring back the loophole. “They even called for requirements of hospital admitting privileges for abortionists to be revoked,” writes PA Family’s Dan Bartkowiak. “It’s all evidence for how women’s health is not a priority for the abortion industry.”
“The laws enacted after her death and Gosnell’s conviction were designed to safeguard women in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. How quickly they forget. More women will die, if the regulations are rolled back. It seems that political victories are more important than women’s safety.” – Ann McElhinney
For more on pushing back against the abortion lobby, visit NoMoreGosnell.com.
