The Pennsylvania state House signed off on a state Senate passed bill that could close other abortion centers that, like the one run by Kermit Gosnell, fail to follow health and safety standards protecting women’s health.
The bill would finally subject abortion centers into the state to regular inspections that could result in fines or closing them if they breach state health and safety laws like the one run by Gosnell in Philadelphia that was described as so dilapidated it was a “house of horrors.”
The House passed SB 732 and the measure, once it gets a final Senate vote, will head to pro-life Gov. Tom Corbett, who is expected to sign the legislation into law. Passage of the bill comes the same day as Pearl Gosnell, Kermit’s wife, pleaded guilty to various charges including assisting in abortions as an unlicensed clinic worker.
Gosnell’s center was found to be filthy and in violation of numerous state health and safety laws and he put women’s health at risk with botched abortions that ultimately killed at least one woman and injured others. Gosnell also used a live birth abortion technique that essentially had him birthing unborn children for the sole purpose of killing them in infanticides using medical scissors to “snip” their spinal cords. The aftermath of numerous investigations found state officials ignored complaints about the abortion center and that the state government had not inspected it or other abortion businesses.
Gosnell and several staffers at his abortion center, including his wife Pearl, were arrested in January after a grand jury indicted them on multiple charges after officials raided his abortion business following a woman’s death and discovered a “shop of horrors” filled with bags of bodies and body parts of deceased unborn children and babies killed in infanticides. Pearl Gosnell, Kermit’s 49-year-old wife who has no medical license, faces a charge of providing an abortion at 24 or more weeks and conspiracy and other charges.
Last March, the Pennsylvania Department of Health found the abortion center had violated more than a dozen health and safety laws ranging from a lack of equipment and drugs for emergency resuscitation to not having a way to get patients to a hospital or a backup physician. In the raid, officials found jars containing the remains of pre-born babies dating back 30 years along with filthy and unsafe conditions and evidence that unlicensed workers had been illegally treating patients. The office has no access for a stretcher in the case of an emergency. In previous emergencies, care was delayed because exit doors were padlocked shut or blocked with debris from the clinic.
But, the grand jury investigation also shows state officials did nothing when reports came in about problems at Gosnell’s abortion center, which has upset incoming pro-life Governor Tom Corbett who fired several state employees.
The abortion industry has been forced to suspend two abortion businesses that employed embattled abortion practitioner Kermit Gosnell, who has been the subject of national controversy over his abortion business in Philadelphia.
Following revelations that Gosnell is associatedwith two other abortion centers in Louisiana and Delaware, the National Abortion Federation made the decision to suspend the memberships of both. Atlantic Women’s Medical Services, the Delaware abortion business that employed Gosnell one day a week to do abortions, and the Delta Clinic abortion center of Baton Rouge, have both had their memberships suspended. Leroy Brinkley owns both abortion businesses. Atlantic operates abortion centers in Wilmington and Dover.
