The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office has charged a West Philadelphia doctor who performed late-term abortions with murder, infanticide, and more related to the deaths of a patient as well as seven newborns. Dr. Kermit Gosnell allegedly forced the live births of babies in the sixth, seven and eighth month of pregnancy and then killed them by severing their spinal cords. District Attorney R. Seth Williams said, "I am aware that abortion is a hot-button topic. But as district attorney, my job is to carry out the law. A doctor who knowingly and systematically mistreats female patients, to the point that one of them dies in his so-called care, commits murder under the law... A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law."
Gosnell, whose Women's Medical Society practice served lower income, minority women, is not a licensed OB/GYN and had his unlicensed staff (including a teenager) administer drugs to patients, according to the Philadelphia DA's office. The DA's office investigated the family practitioner after drug agents who raided the practice found out a patient had a fatal heart attack after being given a lethal dose of narcotics.
The DA's office press release adds that Gosnell is accused of "using a sliding pay scale to administer anesthesia; re-using unsanitary instruments; performing procedures in filthy rooms-some of the rooms had litter boxes and animals present at the time of the operations," and that "Jars containing the severed feet of babies lined a shelf."
