Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortion doctor whose 2013 conviction for killing three infants born alive drew national attention, has passed away at the age of 85.
Maria Bivens, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, confirmed that Gosnell died on March 1 at a hospital located outside the prison system. At the time of his death, he was held at the State Correctional Institution-Smithfield, approximately 60 miles south of Pittsburgh. The cause of death has not been specified.
Gosnell was serving a life sentence for the first-degree murder of the newborns and for involuntary manslaughter related to the drug overdose death of a patient following an abortion at his notorious West Philadelphia clinic, often referred to as the “house of horrors.”
His case became a pivotal moment in the national discourse on abortion nearly a decade before the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Testimonies from former employees revealed that Gosnell, who portrayed himself as an advocate for impoverished and desperate women, frequently conducted illegal abortions beyond Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit. Witnesses stated he delivered babies who showed signs of life—moving, whimpering, or breathing—and then ended their lives by severing their spinal cords, a procedure he called “snipping.”
The grim conditions of Gosnell’s clinic came to light during a 2010 investigation into prescription drug trafficking. Investigators reported finding a revolting environment with bags and bottles containing fetal remains, jars of body parts, and furniture stained with blood, alongside unsanitary medical tools.
A grand jury report issued in 2011 described the practice as a “baby charnel house” and put the number of newborn murders in the “hundreds” while acknowledging that “[m]ost of these acts cannot be prosecuted, because Gosnell destroyed the files.”
The scathing 281-page document noted that Gosnell was not even a board-certified OB-GYN and frequently “left his clinic and his patients untended all day while he was at home, relaxing or exercising.”
“Gosnell routinely cracked jokes about babies whose necks he had just slit,” the grand jury found. “He treated his patients with condescension – slapping them, providing abysmal care, and often refusing even to see or talk to them – unless they were Caucasian, or had money. He yelled at and intimidated his staff. And he took advantage of poor women in desperate situations.”
Commonwealth authorities had failed to conduct routine inspections of all its abortion clinics for 15 years by the time Gosnell’s facility was raided, for what the grand jury called “political reasons.”
“With the change of administration [in 1995] from Governor [Bob] Casey [a pro-life Democrat] to Governor [Tom] Ridge [a pro-choice Republican], officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions,” their report read. “Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.”
In the scandal’s aftermath, two top state health officials were fired and Pennsylvania imposed tougher rules for clinics.
In addition to the state murder charges, Gosnell pleaded guilty to 12 federal drug counts, including conspiracy to distribute pain medication and illegal distribution of oxycodone — earning an additional sentence of 30 years behind bars.
As part of the plea, the doctor copped to writing fraudulent prescriptions, as well as selling scripts for more than 1.4 million doses of drugs including Percocet, OxyContin and Xanax.
With Post wires
