Skip to main content

February 9, 1941 - Kermit Gosnell

His clinic operated for decades with minimal regulatory oversight, a gap that allowed conditions and practices to persist that prosecutors would later describe in clinical but devastating terms. The 2010 raid and subsequent trial revealed not only the scale of illegal procedures performed on patients but a pattern of infanticide against viable infants born alive during those procedures. The criminal case drew attention both to the acts themselves and to the systemic failures — of inspections, oversight bodies, and federal drug enforcement — that had permitted the clinic to continue operating.

From Wikipedia

Kermit Barron Gosnell (February 9, 1941 – March 1, 2026) was an American serial killer and abortion doctor. At his clinic in West Philadelphia, Gosnell provided illegal and unsafe late-term abortions, committed post-labor infanticide after many live births, and ran a prescription pill mill which eventually attracted federal attention. Gosnell was convicted of the murders of three infants who were born alive after using drugs to induce labor, the manslaughter of one woman who died of an anesthetic overdose during an abortion procedure, and of several other abortion- and drug-related crimes. Staff at Gosnell's clinic testified that there were hundreds of infants born alive during abortion procedures and subsequently killed either by Gosnell himself or on Gosnell's orders by staff.

Gosnell, based in the Mantua neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, owned and operated the Women's Medical Society Clinic, a non-compliant abortion clinic located at 3801 Lancaster Avenue that was dubbed a "house of horrors" during his criminal trial. In a 2010 raid, authorities found the intact human remains of 47 fetuses and babies stored in bags and cartons, numerous of which were suspected and later confirmed to be victims of infanticide. In 2011, Gosnell, his wife Pearl, and eight employees were charged with a total of 32 felonies and 227 misdemeanors in connection with numerous deaths, illegal abortion procedures, and regulatory violations. Gosnell was also a prolific prescriber of numerous controlled substances, including OxyContin.

⚠ Report a problem with this article

  • Last updated on .