In a closely watched capital murder trial of a Philadelphia abortion doctor, Dr. Kermit Gosnell, accused of horrific murders of just-delivered babies at his West Philadelphia clinic is the target of a “prosecutorial lynching” in a case that is “elitist and racist,” Gosnell’s lawyer said in his opening.
“This is a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution of a doctor who’s done nothing but give (back) to the poor and the people of West Philadelphia,” the fiery lawyer Jack McMahon said to the predominantly black jury. “It’s a prosecutorial lynching of Dr. Kermit Gosnell.”
McMahon claimed that the prosecution was applying “Mayo Clinic” standards to Gosnell’s inner-city office in West Philadelphia. He said the clinic performed as many as 1,000 abortions a year, and at least 16,000 over his long career, and had a lower-than-average complication rate.
But prosecutors paint a far different picture of the practices they said went on at Gosnell’s clinic. They said the 72-year-old doctor ran a rogue clinic that ignored the state ban on third-term abortions and 24-hour waiting periods, maimed desperate, often poor women and teens by letting his untrained staff perform abortions and give anesthesia, and used outmoded drugs and unorthodox methods to force women to endure labor and then deliver live babies that were killed by staff with scissors.
“The standard practice here was to slay babies. That’s what they did,” said Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore, who repeated a 2011 grand jury report that called the clinic “a house of horrors.”
Prosecutors say Gosnell profited handsomely—police found $250,000 in cash during a 2010 search of his home.
Gosnell is charged with killing seven babies born alive, and also with the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old refugee from Bhutan. According to the prosecution, Gosnell’s staff gave the 90-pound woman a lethal dose of anesthesia and painkillers during a 2009 abortion.
McMahon claims none of the babies were born alive. He said there is no physical evidence in five of the deaths and that the murder charges are based on staff testimony that the babies moved or cried.
Prosecutors say Gosnell’s staff agreed to participate in the house of horrors because they were nearly as desperate as the patients—the two other “doctors” on staff were allegedly medical school graduates without licenses, the employee giving anesthesia was a sixth-grade dropout, while a 15-year-old high school student helped in the surgical and recovery rooms.
The case is being used as a rallying point for anti-abortion forces.
“The Gosnell case is a watershed moment for the issue of abortion,” said Troy Newman, President of Operation Rescue and Pro-Life Nation. “The discovery of his horrific practices helped shed light on an abortion industry that has run amok without oversight or accountability for decades, and has prompted significant changes in abortion laws and attitudes toward enforcement in several states.”
The doctor faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in the infant deaths and is charged with third-degree murder in Mongar’s death.
There are eight co-defendants in the case who have pleaded guilty, most of whom will testify against Gosnell. Three of them pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, which carries a 20- to 40-year term.
According to the Associated Press, the trial is expected to last six to eight weeks.
