Safe, Legal and Rare?

WARNING: Graphic content...

After generations of graphic and pervasive sex education, easy access to contraceptives, and free reproductive services for anyone who will accept them, the abortion industry still stinks as badly as it ever has:

A doctor whose abortion clinic was described as a filthy, foul-smelling "house of horrors" that was overlooked by regulators for years was charged Wednesday with murder, accused of delivering seven babies alive and then using scissors to kill them.

Here's some info for the "legalization and government regulation always make it better" crowd:

In a nearly 300-page grand jury report filled with ghastly, stomach-turning detail, prosecutors said Pennsylvania regulators ignored complaints of barbaric conditions at Gosnell's clinic, which catered to poor, immigrant and minority women in the city's impoverished West Philadelphia section.

Prosecutors called the case a "complete regulatory collapse."

If you can't blame the guy for running a barbaric abortion business, maybe at least you'll disapprove of his racism:

White women from the suburbs were ushered into a separate, slightly cleaner area because Gosnell believed they were more likely to file complaints, Williams said.

Or maybe you can blame him for his unbridled capitalist greed:

Prosecutors said Gosnell made millions of dollars over three decades performing thousands of dangerous abortions, many of them illegal late-term procedures. His clinic had no trained nurses or medical staff other than Gosnell, a family physician not certified in obstetrics or gynecology, prosecutors said.

A filthy, bloody, stinking capitalist:

At least two women died from the procedures, while scores more suffered perforated bowels, cervixes and uteruses, authorities said.

But the fetuses were just clumps of cells... Right?

He "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord," District Attorney Seth Williams said.

Gosnell referred to it as "snipping," prosecutors said.

Prosecutors estimated Gosnell ended hundreds of pregnancies by cutting the spinal cords, but they said they couldn't prosecute more cases because he destroyed files.

Did I forget to mention that Dr. Snippy is a filthy capitalist pig?

Gosnell didn't advertise, but word got around. Women came from across the city, state and region for illegal late-term abortions, authorities said. They paid $325 for first-trimester abortions and $1,600 to $3,000 for abortions up to 30 weeks. The clinic took in $10,000 to $15,000 a day, authorities said.

Ladies seeking an abortion from Dr. Snippy probably could have done better in a back alley. Or at home with a coat hanger:

Prosecutors said the place reeked of cat urine because of the animals that were allowed to roam freely, furniture and blankets were stained with blood, instruments were not properly sterilized, and disposable medical supplies were used over and over.

Dr. Gosnell is a truly evil man:

Few if any of the sedated patients knew their babies had been delivered alive and then killed, prosecutors said. Many were first-time mothers who were told they were 24 weeks pregnant, even if they were much further along, authorities said.

Prosecutors said Gosnell falsified the ultrasound examinations that determine how far along a pregnancy is, teaching his staff to hold the probe in such a way that the fetus would look smaller.

Gosnell sometimes joked about the babies, saying one was so large he could "walk me to the bus stop," according to the report.

Another snippet for statists:

State regulators ignored complaints about Gosnell and the 46 lawsuits filed against him, and made just five annual inspections, most satisfactory, since the clinic opened in 1979, authorities said. The inspections stopped completely in 1993 because of what prosecutors said was the pro-abortion rights attitude that set in after Democratic Gov. Robert Casey, an abortion foe, left office.

FYI, Robert Casey was succeeded by Tom Ridge (R).

Unfortunately, this case was not brought to light as a result of concerns about the mothers and their babies:

Authorities raided Gosnell's clinic early last year in search of drug violations and stumbled upon "a house of horrors," Williams said. Bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses "were scattered throughout the building," the district attorney said. "There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose."

To those who have the audacity to say that this case shows that "the system is working," let us point out that "the system" didn't catch up with this murderer intentionally. The system literally stumbled over his victims.

• Hat Tips: The Other McCain, American Power
• Echoes of Janet Napolitano: "The System is Working"
• GM: Do you really believe that just this one facility went unregulated for fifteen years?
• Grizzly: Report of the Grand Jury
• Scissors don't kill people, abortionists do.
• X-posted

[All emphasis added]

Update:

Excerpt from the Report of the Grand Jury:

Gosnell catered to the women who couldn’t get abortions elsewhere – because they were too pregnant. Most doctors won’t perform late second-trimester abortions, from approximately the 20th week of pregnancy, because of the risks involved. And late-term abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy are flatly illegal. But for Dr. Gosnell, they were an opportunity. The bigger the baby, the more he charged.

There was one small problem. The law requires a measurement of gestational age, usually done by an ultrasound. The ultrasound film would leave documentary proof that the abortion was illegal. Gosnell’s solution was simply to fudge the measurement process. Instead of hiring proper ultrasound technicians, he “trained” the staff himself, showing them how to aim the ultrasound probe at an angle to make the fetus look smaller. If one of his workers nonetheless recorded an ultrasound measurement that was too big, it would just be redone. Invariably these second ultrasounds would come in lower. In fact, almost every time a second ultrasound was taken, the gestational age would be recorded as precisely 24.5 weeks – slightly past the statutory cutoff. Apparently Gosnell thought he would get away with abortions that were just a little illegal. In reality, of course, most of these pregnancies were considerably more advanced.

But the illegal abortion business also posed an additional dilemma. Babies that big are hard to get out. Gosnell’s approach, whenever possible, was to force full labor and delivery of premature infants on ill-informed women. The women would check in during the day, make payment, and take labor-inducing drugs. The doctor wouldn’t appear until evening, often 8:00, 9:00, or 10:00 p.m., and only then deal with any of the women who were ready to deliver. Many of them gave birth before he even got there. By maximizing the pain and danger for his patients, he minimized the work, and cost, for himself and his staff. The policy, in effect, was labor without labor.

There remained, however, a final difficulty. When you perform late-term “abortions” by inducing labor, you get babies. Live, breathing, squirming babies. By 24 weeks, most babies born prematurely will survive if they receive appropriate medical care. But that was not what the Women’s Medical Society was about. Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies he delivered: he killed them. He didn’t call it that. He called it “ensuring fetal demise.” The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby’s neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that “snipping.”

Over the years, there were hundreds of “snippings.” Sometimes, if Gosnell was unavailable, the “snipping” was done by one of his fake doctors, or even by one of the administrative staff. But all the employees of the Women’s Medical Society knew. Everyone there acted as if it wasn’t murder at all.