Kermit Gosnell
| Kermit Gosnell | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Kermit Barron Gosnell February 9, 1941 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
| Criminal charge |
|
| Criminal penalty | Life without parole plus 30 years |
| Criminal status | In custody at SCI Huntingdon |
| Spouse(s) | Pearl Gosnell |
| Children | 6 |
| Conviction(s) | Convicted on 3 counts of first-degree murder, 1 count involuntary manslaughter, pled guilty to federal charges |
| Killings | |
| Victims | Convicted on four state counts, hundreds of similar incidents reported |
| Country | United States of America |
| State(s) | Pennsylvania |
Kermit Barron Gosnell (born February 9, 1941) is an American former abortion-provider who was convicted of murdering three infants who were born alive during attempted abortion procedures.
Gosnell owned and operated the Women's Medical Society clinic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and he was a prolific prescriber of OxyContin. In 2011, Gosnell and various co-defendant employees were charged with eight counts of murder, 24 felony counts of performing illegal abortions beyond the state of Pennsylvania’s 24-week time limit, and 227 misdemeanor counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. The murder charges related to an adult patient, Karnamaya Mongar, who died following an abortion procedure, and seven newborns said to have been killed by having their spinal cords severed with scissors after being born alive during attempted abortions. In May 2013, Gosnell was convicted of first degree murder in the deaths of three of the infants and involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar. Gosnell was also convicted of 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating the 24-hour informed consent law. After his conviction, Gosnell waived his right to appeal in exchange for an agreement not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Kermit Gosnell was born on February 9, 1941, in Philadelphia, the only child of a gas station operator and a government clerk in an African-American family. He was a top student at the city's Central High School from which he graduated in 1959. Gosnell graduated from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA with a bachelor's degree. Gosnell received his medical degree at the Jefferson Medical School in 1966. It has been reported that he spent four decades practising medicine among the poor, including opening the Mantua Halfway House, a rehab clinic for drug addicts in the impoverished Mantua neighborhood of West Philadelphia near where he grew up, and a teen aid program. He became an early proponent of abortion rights in the 1960s and 1970s and, in 1972, he returned from a stint in New York City to open up an abortion clinic on Lancaster Avenue in Mantua. Gosnell told a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter in October 1972: "as a physician, I am very concerned about the sanctity of life. But it is for this precise reason that I provide abortions for women who want and need them".
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