Gosnell abortion clinic employee Sherry West, who described how she heard a baby scream during a live-birth abortion, has been sentenced to 5-10 years in prison for her role in the “House of Horrors” abortion clinic incidents.
West described an incident which “really freaked (her) out” and related to the jury how she heard a child scream who was born alive following an abortion. West remembered how she referred to the dead children killed in these gruesome abortion procedures as “specimens” so she could avoid the mental trauma associated with knowing how they died.
On November 19, 2009, 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar suffered a fatal drug overdose during an abortion procedure at the Women’s Medical Society in West Philadelphia. West played a role in Mongar’s death.
A Philadelphia media report offers further details on her sentencing:
On Thursday, life got harder after West was sentenced to five to 10 years in prison for her role in the 2009 overdose death of an abortion patient.
West, 54, sat sobbing, head down on the defense table, after Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Benjamin Lerner imposed the sentence.
“Nobody believes the truth anymore, nobody,” wept West. Because of a delay getting a prisoner elevator to the 11th-floor courtroom, West stayed there, crying, for 5 minutes as court staff worked nearby and a sheriff’s deputy stood guard.
West pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and other charges, admitting that on Nov. 19, 2009, she administered some of the Demerol overdose that killed Karnamaya Mongar, 41, during an abortion at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society clinic.
West also admitted that, after accompanying the comatose Mongar and her family to a hospital emergency room, she lied about what happened and destroyed or altered Mongar’s medical records.
On Thursday, however, West maintained she “treated patients like family” and “didn’t mean to do anything wrong.”
Lerner told West she was in denial: “I think at some point you’ll come to be more honest in terms of what your role was here. And I think that you’re not there yet.”
West started working for Gosnell in late 2008, after being his patient for more than 20 years. West said she had previously worked at the Veterans Administration, doing preparation work in the operating room, but left in 2007 after suffering a nervous breakdown and being diagnosed with Hepatitis C that she contracted in the hospital.
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West said she was desperate for money in 2008 because she was fighting with the VA over disability benefits and Gosnell agreed to hire her and pay her under the table. She said Gosnell, as her primary care doctor, was well aware that she had a nervous breakdown, was on the anti-anxiety drug Prozac and had Hepatitis C diagnosis.
When Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore pressed the 53-year-old West for specifics about the incident, West struggled to answer, clearly uncomfortable with the memory.
“I can’t describe it. It sounded like a little alien,” West testified, telling a judge and Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas jury that the body of the child was about 18 to 24 inches long and was one of the largest babies she had seen delivered during abortion procedures at Gosnell’s clinic.
West said she saw the child, whose face and features were not yet completely formed, lying on a glass tray on a shelf and she told a co-worker to call Gosnell about it and fled the room.
During her two years working for Gosnell, West said she also saw patients deliver “specimens” in the toilet, which she made a co-worker remove, adding she called aborted fetuses “specimens” because “it was easier to deal with mentally.”
