At least Dr. Gosnell wasn’t running a Hooters!

Anyone who wants to read the gruesome details about that Philadelphia butcher who performed unsanitary and illegal abortions which killed women and babies should check out Clayton Cramer’s post on the subject.  The following is from the Grand Jury report:

This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable, babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths. Over the years, many people came to know that something was going on here. But no one put a stop to it.

The clinic reeked of animal urine, courtesy of the cats that were allowed to roam (and defecate) freely. Furniture and blankets were stained with blood. Instruments were not properly sterilized. Disposable medical supplies were not disposed of; they were reused, over and over again.  Medical equipment – such as the defibrillator, the EKG, the pulse oximeter, the blood pressure cuff – was generally broken; even when it worked, it wasn’t used. The emergency exit was padlocked shut. And scattered throughout, in cabinets, in the basement, in a freezer, in jars and bags and plastic jugs, were fetal remains. It was a baby charnel house.

As to why it took them so long to catch up with this guy, it appears that for political reasons the bureaucrats who are supposed to police these things simply looked the other way.

…the 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.

The only exception to this live-and-let-die policy was supposed to be for complaints dumped directly on the department’s doorstep. Those, at least, would be investigated. Except that there were complaints about Gosnell, repeatedly. Several different attorneys, representing women injured by Gosnell, contacted the department. A doctor from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia hand-delivered a complaint, advising the department that numerous patients he had referred for abortions came back from Gosnell with the same venereal disease. The medical examiner of Delaware County informed the  department that Gosnell had performed an illegal abortion on a 14-year-old girl carrying a 30-week-old baby. And the department received official notice that a woman named Karnamaya Mongar had died at Gosnell’s hands.

Yet not one of these alarm bells – not even Mrs. Mongar’s death – prompted the department to look at Gosnell or the Women’s Medical Society. Only after the raid occurred, and the story hit the press, did the department choose to act.

It seems the doctor (who is black) had a higher standard of care for white patients from the Philadelphia suburbs. Go figure that one out if you can. (I suspect he realized that the white patients were more likely to complain.)

Cramer’s wife asks a good question:

As my wife pointed out this morning: isn’t this what making abortion legal was supposed to prevent?  Dangerous, unhygenic abortions that mutilated and killed women?

Yeah, where are the feminists who wave the coat hanger signs and scream “keep abortion safe and legal!” when you need them?

If they were true to their “principles,” they would be citing this case as an example of what happens when abortion is illegal (which Dr. Gosnell’s abortions were, which is precisely why he was running what amounted to a sub rosa, gray market “clinic”). But respectable feminism is not comfortable with political advocacy of third-term-abortion-on-demand, so I suspect they won’t say a thing.

Surprise! A search at the NOW site turned up nothing about this case. Obviously, NOW is too busy blaming Sarah Palin and hate speech for the Loughner rampage, and filing complaints against Hooters in order to prevent the “exposure of minor children to sexual entertainment.”

Scantily clad women are of course far more dangerous than a man who butchers women and preemies.    

Oh the irony.


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5 responses to “At least Dr. Gosnell wasn’t running a Hooters!”

  1. Kate Avatar
    Kate

    Let’s not forget the unwritten agenda of certain folks: having abortion easily available to low-income dark-skinned folks means fewer dark-skinned people and they stay “on the plantation”.
    If the price is a bunch of dead preemies (that no-one has to pay to keep alive) and a few dead or sterile from STD women, well, that’s not too bad.
    Just look at the treatment handed out to dark-skinned folk who don’t swallow the left-leaning agenda, to women who don’t, and to dark-skinned women who don’t.
    I wouldn’t be all that surprised to see Condi Rice and Sarah Palin form a GOP ticket for 2012 on the “Proof you don’t need to be Democrat to be a successful black or a successful woman” line. (I don’t think it will happen, but I wouldn’t be stunned – personally I think Governor Palin is going to maintain the “spoiler” role, where she has a lot more freedom to influence people and state her views.)

  2. Clayton E. Cramer Avatar

    What’s quite astonishing is that the grand jury report emphasizes that white women received substantially better care from Dr. Gosnell (who is black) than women of color and pretty obviously to the staff, because they were white.

  3. M. Simon Avatar

    If some private entity which could be sued was in charge of inspections (a la UL with electrical eqpt) there might have been more diligence.

  4. RT Avatar
    RT

    This guy is no more representative of abortion doctors as Loughner is of gun owners.

  5. Deb Avatar
    Deb

    This guy is no more representative of abortion doctors as Loughner is of gun owners.
    RT · January 22, 2011 8:30 PM
    How would you know? Does your state do a better job of oversight over abortion clinics? Seems the MSM isn’t interested in informing us.