By Terence P. Jeffrey
[Editor's note: This story contains graphic photos of babies allegedly murdered in the abortion clinic of Dr. Kermit Gosnell.]
(CNSNews.com) -- Two recent cases of mass murder--one gaining a great deal of national media attention, the other very little--both specifically targeted children.
In Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14, 20-year-old Adam Lanza broke into the Sandy Hook Elementary School and, according to the Connecticut Medical Examiner, murdered 20 6- and 7-year-old first graders. He also murdered six adult staff at the school and shot his mother four times in the head as she slept in the home he shared with her.
In Philadelphia, Pa., over a course of decades, according to a Pennsylvania grand jury, Dr. Kermit Gosnell, a wealthy abortionist who specialized in terminating the lives of babies late in pregnancy, murdered "hundreds" of born babies by either suctioning out their brains or slitting the backs of their necks to sever their spinal cords.
Gosnell also deputized assistants to kill born babies for him.
Gosnell is now standing trial in Philadelphia for seven counts of murder for killing babies who survived his abortions. But the grand jury that charged him with these murders lamented that the Pennsylvania statute-of-limitations law prohibits someone from being charged with infanticide if the alleged killing of an infant occurred two or more years ago. They also lamented that Gosnell was able to destroy records that could have documented multitudinous acts of homicide his staff described in sworn testimony.
The grand jury concluded that the statute-of-limitations on infant-killing was helping Gosnell get away with killing hundreds of born babies.
"We recommend that the legislature amend the statute of limitations so that infanticide is treated as what it is--homicide," said the grand jury in its report.
"It is important to extend the statute of limitations not only because of the seriousness of the offense, but also because the crime is hard to discover," said the grand jury. "Gosnell, we are convinced, committed hundreds of acts of infanticide. He got away with them for decades because they all took place inside his clinic. We are disappointed that we can charge him for only the babies he let die in the past two years. Homicide has no statute of limitations, and neither should infanticide."
Another Gosnell staffer, Tina Baldwin, frequently witnessed Gosnell cutting the necks of born babies and was charged along with him with conspiracy to run a corrupt organization and corruption of the morals of a minor--the minor being Baldwin's teenage daughter, Ashley, who worked at the clinic as a high school student and who personally witnessed Gosnell slitting the necks of born babies.
"We were able to document seven specific incidents in which Gosnell or one of his employees severed the spine of a viable baby born alive," said the grand jury. "We charge Gosnell, Lynda Williams, Adrienne Moton, and Steven Massof with murder in the first degree. Along with Sherry West, they are also charged with conspiracy to commit murder in relation to the hundreds of unidentifiable instances in which they planned to, and no doubt did, carry out similar killings."
Massof, the medical school graduate who was not a licensed physician but nonetheless worked at Gosnell's abortion clinic, told the grand jury that it was routine for him or Gosnell to suction out the brains or cut the necks of a born baby.
"Under further questioning, Massof acknowledged that Gosnell and he almost always cut the spinal cords, and sometimes suctioned skulls as well, after the babies were fully expelled by their mothers, when there was clearly no need or medical reason to collapse the skull," said the grand jury report.
"Tina Baldwin corroborated that this was Gosnell’s standard procedure," said the report. "She explained that after a fetus was expelled, Gosnell 'used to go ahead and do the suction in the back of the neck.' She saw this 'hundreds' of times."
Baldwin testified to the grand jury in graphic detail about how Gosnell would suction out the brains of a living baby, crush its head, or slit its neck--after the baby was out of the mother's body.
"She said that he would 'crack' the neck after the head was out--when only the baby’s torso was still inside the mother--and then suction the brain matter out," the grand jury report described her testimony at one point.
Baldwin had this exchange with the grand jury:
Question: "He was delivering, for lack of a better word--"
Baldwin: "Yes."
Question: "--a fetus?"
Baldwin: "Yeah."
Question: "And then he was taking care of the problem after the fact?"
Baldwin: "Yes."
Question: "Did you see him do this in instances where the fetus had been completely expelled from the mother’s body before he crushed the head?"
Baldwin: "And then he crushed it."
Question: "And then he crushed it. I mean I guess you just told the members of the jury about episodes where he would leave the shoulders or--
Baldwin: "Uh-huh."
Question: "--the shoulders would be out?"
Baldwin: "The shoulders would be out, yeah"
Question: "And he would go work on the neck, you said he would crush the neck and suction the head?"
Baldwin: "Uh-huh."
Question: "Did you ever see instances where the fetus was completely expelled from its mother’s body?"
Baldwin: "Oh, yeah, yeah. That’s what we call precipitation."
Question: "What do you mean by that? Tell the members of the jury, what would happen?"
Baldwin: "That’s when a patient would precipitate. Usually by the Cytotec that was given to the patient and it just made the uterus so flimsy to where the baby just falls and we had a lot of patients that was second-trimester, it would just fall wherever she was at. And it was picked up and it was put in a dish and it just traveled with the mother. And then the person put the mother up on the table, the baby was put inside the--in the dish on the table and the doctor was called to come in.
Question: "And then what would the doctor do when he came in?"
Baldwin:"Let me think back then. Usually he would check and see, check on the fetus and then I think that’s when he used to go ahead and do the suction in the back of the neck."
Question: "Even though the fetuses had already been removed from their mother?"
Baldwin: "Yeah, they had already been removed. He would just go ahead and finish it."
Question: "Would he explain to you why he did that?"
Baldwin: "No."
Question: "Or why that was his practice?"
Baldwin: "No."
Question: "Did you ever question it?"
Baldwin: "No."
Question: "Okay, how many times would you say you’ve seen this?"
Baldwin: "Hundreds. I’ve seen hundreds."
Baldwin was not the only Gosnell assistant who saw him routinely slit the necks of babies. Kareema Cross, whom the grand jury described "as another uncertified 'medical assistant,' described the procedure as the norm in Gosnell's abortion practice.
"Kareema Cross testified that when she first started working at the clinic, in 2005, Gosnell slit the neck of every baby," said hte grand jury report.
Massof, the unlicensed medical school graduate who worked for Gosnell, corroborated that when doing late-term abortions Gosnell routinely cut the necks of born babies. "Massof said that Gosnell cut the spinal cord '100 percent of the time' in second-trimester (and, presumably, third-trimester) procedures, and that he did so after the baby was delivered," said the grand jury report.
Massoff admitted to the grand jury the he personally severed the spinal cords of living babies about times. He had this exchange with the grand jury:
Question: "... of those 100 how many were larger than 24 weeks?"
Massof: "That I couldn’t tell you for sure. I would have to think that they would all be because they were all able--after a certain period in weeks, you know, there’s--they would have to be capable. I mean premature births are quite common."
The grand jury concluded that what happened in Gosnell's abortion business was "murder in plain sight."
"Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies he delivered: he killed them," said the grand jury. "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,'" said the grand jury. '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."
The grand jury not only cited the statute of limitations as stifling their ability to charge Gosnell with all the murders they believe he committed, but also his destruction of records. "Most of these acts cannot be prosecuted, because Gosnell destroyed the files."
Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner H. Wayne Carver II said that on Dec. 14 Adam Lanza murdered 20 children who were first graders at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Lanza also killed 6 adults at the school and his mother.
Lanza used guns to murder the 20 children at the elementary school, according to the medical examinder. Gosnell used medical equipment to murder the hundreds of children in his abortion clinic, according to the grand jury.
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