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Pro-lifers call abortion doctor a murderous racist

Kermit Gosnell was slammed by pro-life activist Thursday as a racist against his own black community.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell. (Yong Kim / Staff Photographer, file)
Dr. Kermit Gosnell. (Yong Kim / Staff Photographer, file)Read more

KERMIT GOSNELL, the former Philadelphia abortion doctor on trial for allegedly killing seven viable babies and a woman who died after a botched abortion, was slammed by pro-life activists Thursday as a racist against his own black community, and as its "angel of death" for becoming rich from aborting primarily black babies.

The rally in front of the city's criminal justice center came on the same day that one of Gosnell's former employees testified about "beheading" babies in the disgraced doctor's West Philadelphia abortion clinic.

Steven Massof, 51, an unlicensed doctor who has pleaded guilty to killing two viable babies, testified for the prosecution that Gosnell taught him such techniques.

"It's literally a beheading. It's separating the brain from the body," Massof, 51, told the jury.

Massof, who is in custody, also said he recalled seeing babies born with beating hearts before being killed. At first he said the total was about three babies, but he changed his answer to about 100 after Assistant District Attorney Edward Cameron reminded him that he had testified to the higher number in front of the grand jury in 2010.

During their lunchtime rally, the activists also slammed Gosnell's attorney, Jack McMahon, who opened the trial last month by accusing the prosecution of engaging in an elitist, racist lynching of his client.

"That's a sad state of affairs for this city and for a counsel that would dare to feel that that is a means of defense that would sway a jury," said the Rev. Clenard Childress Jr., founder of BlackGenocide.org.

"It was because they were people of color, it was because they were poor, it was because they did not have the means that he became wealthy from their pain."

If found guilty of murdering the seven babies, Gosnell, 72, could receive the death penalty.

Gosnell is being tried with Eileen O'Neill, 56, who is charged with practicing medicine at the clinic without a license. Eight other former clinic employees have pleaded guilty, and most are testifying against Gosnell.