“I tried to give my patients the care I expect my daughter to receive.”
Kermit Gosnell said those words to me as we sat in a conference room last March, said them as quietly and seriously as a priest saying his morning prayers.
They jump off the page at you now, given the revolting story a grand jury told on Wednesday about Gosnell’s medical practice in an almost-too-horrifying-to-be-true 261-page report.
Daily News readers who have read the report, which accused Gosnell of murdering “hundreds” of babies and at least one patient over the last 30 years, have asked me two questions, over and over again: What was Gosnell like in person, and what did you think of him?
A quick recap: Authorities raided Gosnell’s practice, Women’s Medical Society, on Feb. 18, looking to bust what they thought was a “pill mill.
What they found defied belief: barely conscious women moaning on bloodstained recliners, blood-spattered floors, and jars and bags filled with countless fetal remains.
In the weeks that followed, numerous women reached out to the People Paper to share their own personal horror stories about near-death experiences they had suffered at Gosnell’s hands because of botched abortions.
He instantly became a pariah.
I asked Gosnell’s then-attorney, William J. Brennan (who said he isn’t representing him now), if I could interview the doctor, to see if he could explain what really had been going on inside his West Philadelphia clinic.
On March 8, we met at Brennan’s Center City office.
Gosnell was soft-spoken, but very sure of himself, very sure that he had done nothing wrong.
When I asked him about the numerous women who had sued him over botched abortions, some of which nearly killed them, he responded that no one was perfect, but that he sure tried.
When I asked about the reports of his office being the equivalent of a bloodstained butcher’s shop, he inched his chair next to me and pulled out his iPhone.
He flipped through photos of bathrooms. “We have nine bathrooms,” he said with a small smile, “and each has a terrarium.”
The grand-jury report said the bathrooms were often streaked with vomit and blood, and toilets were sometimes clogged with the remains of aborted fetuses.
He talked a lot about his connection to Mantua, to West Philly, to the community he had grown up in and served for decades.
He talked about his seven kids and his wife, Pearl. The negative press, he said, “has been very difficult, especially for my wife.”
Pearl Gosnell was charged earlier this week with performing illegal abortions.
Our discussion always returned to the nauseating headlines, the lurid accusations. But it was all a misunderstanding, Gosnell insisted. “I feel in the long term, I will be vindicated,” he told me.
As proof, Gosnell noted that the National Abortion Federation (NAF), which sets the standards for abortion care in North America, had visited his clinic in December 2009, and raised nary a concern.
The president of NAF later told me that the exact opposite was true, that Gosnell’s clinic had an extensive list of problems.
But the truth didn’t matter to him. Kermit Gosnell kept smiling, so content with the idea that he provided the type of care he’d want his daughter to have.
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Here's a rundown of this week's coverage of Dr. Kermit Gosnell from the Daily News:
At filthy clinic, babies met an inhumane end, grand jury says
Inside the 'baby charnel' house
Grand jury's report on abortion mill a roadmap of failure
State officials kept looking the other way on clinic, report finds
Victims say abortion doctor scarred them for life
Ex-patient: I think he should get life in prison
Abortion doctor surprised by denial of bail
Elmer Smith: This monster wasn't the kid I once knew
Christine M. Flowers: The wakeup call on abortion from West Philadelphia
Hot Button chat with David Gambacorta
To read the grand jury report yourself (be warned that it is filled with EXTREMELY GRAPHIC images) click here.
Obviously delusional. The evidence is overwhelming and to sat it's the care he would want his daughter to have? Only a sick person could do this.— drenner- This guy is a real psychopath. If I believed in the rightness of the death penalty, I would use this guy for one of my arguments. A true psychopath knows right from wrong, he just doesn't care. This guy doesn't even know that, has no remorse. This isn't even an abortion issue; it is about the murder of already born, living and breathing people and must be treated as such— prenestino
- Physically forcing a young woman to have an unwanted abortion? Josef Mengele, move over— prenestino
Gosnell wants the same to his own daughter, and I believe him. That he is willing to dispatch his own grandchildren with sissors shows the mark of a true believer. The abortion gods must be proud.- I smell an insanity defense coming...— cubalaw
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGEIl6oR_vU.............................This animal deserves the death penalty.— MichaelGourdine
- Of course Kermit thinks he did nothing wrong; he is just another Liberal Democrat! Why wouldn’t he slaughter babies, keep aborted baby body parts as souvenirs, and kill or injure patients. He knows that Rendell has a “hands-off abortion centers” edict! This is who Kermit is, a wolf who preys upon the Poor and Ignorant, for money! What did Rendell say on 60 minutes; we are Simpletons and Idiots for opposing gambling, because why shouldn’t PA benefit at the expense of the Poor and Ignorant. Welcome to Moral Relativism!— CrashTestCorzine
...when you have no morals, nothing you do is wrong. He obviously got beyond the taking of human life in his youth, and now it is just another day at the office.— republicrat- It most certainly is an abortion issue...some very late-stage pregnant women went to this monster to become not-pregnant and it cracks me up to hear some of these people described as victims— mickeith72
- If this man truly is capable of mutilating his own daugher and murdering his own grandchild, he then is a worse monster than what the indictment portrays. The problem of allowing a physician with no moral impediment to kill is that he has the skills and knowledge to commit the most horrendous crimes imaginable. Remember Dr. Mengele.— DonQ
Comment removed.
yeah and conrad murray did nothing wrong either- How can you really mention the 2 names in the same breath. I won't be surprised to seeMurray acquitted. MJ while talented in his time hab been reduced to a junkie. Case closed. — cubalaw
- Good legal move letting your client be interviewed by a newspaper. Think that might have been motivated by the lawyers desire to get his picture in the pape???????— cubalaw
- he did force some into it, but the majority of the people who went to him, went by their own choice. He should face severe punishment, but a lot of these people got what they asked for.— wolfburn
Dana DiFilippo has covered murder, mayhem and miscellany at the Daily News since 2000. She grew up in Delaware County and studied journalism and photography at Penn State University. E-mail tips to difilid@phillynews.com.
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Stephanie Farr has been reporting for the Daily News since 2007, covering everything from gay porn stars who entered the burglary business to moon trees, skinheads, murders and naked bike rides. She covers crime, both in the city and suburbs, and keeps clippings of bizarre Associated Press articles. Her favorite this year was the story about the drunk in Punxsutawney who gave mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to a dead opossum. E-mail tips to farrs@phillynews.com.
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Phillip Lucas joined the Daily News crime team in 2011. He grew up on the mean streets of Seattle and studied journalism and psychology at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Before landing in the City of Brotherly Love, Phillip was a reporter for The News Journal in Wilmington, Del. Email tips to lucasp@phillynews.com.
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Morgan Zalot is the newest crime reporter at the Daily News, starting in 2011 after interning at the paper twice as a Temple University journalism student. In her past stints at the DN, she covered just about everything, from drunken Phillies fans to a barber shop in a high school to a grisly murder-suicide. She’s a born-and-raised Philly girl who grew up in the Northeast. E-mail tips to zalotm@philly.com.
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