Today’s New York Times in an article “Squalid Abortion Clinic Escaped State Oversight” described the despicable conditions poor colored women confronted in getting an abortion in Philadelphia over a 25-year period. A few days ago, the state indicted Dr. Gosnell on eight counts of murder in the deaths of seven infants and a Bhutanese refugee after a later-term abortion in 2009.

The Times reported:

  1. No Pennsylvania official had stepped inside the clinic for 15 years
  2. Complaints against Dr. Gosnell dated back to 1983
  3. Gosnell’s insurance company paid $1 million to family of Semika Shaw who died from an infection in 2002
  4. The clinic operated on most occasions past midnight
  5. Gosnell had been sued 15 times for malpractice
  6. The Grand Jury reported the clinic had blood on the floor, a stench of urine in the air and cat feces on the stairs.

A former patient of the clinic, Sherry Thomas said “It was like walking into a nightmare. Everyone was sedated, no one was making sense. People were slumped over and waiting in line like they were going to a soup kitchen. Semiconscious women scheduled for abortions were moaning in the waiting room or the recovery room, whey they sat on dirty recliners covered with blood spattered blankets.

Pennsylvania needs to institute widespread investigation of the causes of this nightmare, including the documentation of how a clinic operating in Philadelphia escaped minimal supervision. Furthermore, unless state and local officials are prosecuted there remains a strong likelihood of resumption of these horrid practices in other abortion clinics not only in Pennsylvania, but throughout our nation. This clinic’s modus operandi is an affront to civilized society. The pronouncement by Christopher Dutton “People Die” reflects a total lack of empathy for disadvantaged women.