Do we live in a confusing world? When it comes to the moral fabric of our nation, are things in it getting worse? Is there a deteriorating mechanism attacking the basic framework of our lives?

You might not know what happened at 3801 Lancaster Avenue, Philadelphia, PA. Going unnoticed for years, under the guise of a medical practice, there has been a kind of on-going holocaust occurring. The building was given the name, “House of Horrors,” because of what the FBI and the detectives found on those premises on February 18, 2010. These despicable acts took place at an impressive three-story brick building positioned where everybody can see this stately structure dividing two well-traveled streets. In the center of the building, you can’t miss the picture image of a man and a woman holding a child. The signage included a variety of medical services that were listed under huge letters that spelled out “Family Planning.”

When you Google the address, the following information comes-up, “Dr. Kermit Gosnell Family Practice – Male 72.” According to one of Gosnell’s neighbors, “He has a good reputation. People liked him and they actually believed he was offering a service by helping poor woman who couldn’t afford any place else. So how that might be wrong is anybody’s guess.” Many in the community had a similar opinion, and that was the general consensus, until the gory details were reported by the media.

There were allegations that Gosnell had participated in illegal drug distribution by using part of his practice as a pain clinic. The detectives and police officers couldn’t help but notice the atrocious conditions as noted in the Grand Jury Report. Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams gave the following account, “Once law enforcement agents went in, they couldn’t help noticing the disgusting conditions, the dazed patients, and the discarded fetuses.” (From page 8 of the Grand Jury’s report)

It took three years before Doctor Kermit Gosnell was convicted for killing three newborn babies. On May 13, 2013, he was found guilty of premeditated murder for what took place as his Woman’s Medical Society. There were numerous testimonies concerning his chosen method of abortion. After inducing labor, the babies were delivered alive only to have their spines severed with scissors. Because the children were killed outside the womb, this made him liable to the murder charge. For over 40 years, this doctor performed thousands of illegal abortions including numerous third-trimester abortions. He was also charged with an additional 250-plus counts that were tied to violations of state abortion law prohibiting the termination of pregnancies after 24 weeks.

See No Evil

How did this go unnoticed for so long? Gosnell’s depraved ways can be traced all the way back to 1972. He was arrested for reckless abortion practices for busing 15 women, half of them teenagers, from Chicago all getting second trimester abortions. Ironically, it was on Mother’s Day that Gosnell tried out a new device, an abortion “super coil.” He never told the women that he was using them as guinea pigs. The device uses plastic razor blades that, in the Gosnell case, resulted in injuring 9 out of the 15 women, with one woman needing a total hysterectomy. This grim medical experiment caused a joint Federal/State investigation to label the event, “the Mother’s Day Massacre.”

For a time, Gosnell left the state so that he would not lose his medical license. Some time later, he reappeared, untouched and unblemished, and continued his horrific medical practice. The grand jury stated, “The Pennsylvania Board of Medicine ignored his role in this grotesquely unsuccessful experiment, which seriously and permanently maimed several women.” If they had followed through with the appropriate discipline, perhaps we would not have had another four decades of slaughter where thousands of innocent babies were murdered and woman were tortured, often leaving them with terrible physical and emotional scars.

The State Department of Health could have shut down the Women’s Medical Society at any time. Complaint upon complaint was filed, but the authorities chose to look the other way. Gosnell’s medical practice was visited in 1989, ten years after its inception. It was found to have numerous violations that were answered with vain promises to fix the problems. Revisited in 1992 and 1993, still with numerous violations and no improvements, Gosnell continued ruthlessly year after year without any follow up by the health authorities. It was not until 2010 that the Department of Health finally took action, and this was in spite of the continuance of significant complaints for nearly two decades!

In 1996, a woman suffered a perforated uterus due to Gosnell’s negligence. In 2002, authorities were notified that a woman died at Gosnell’s Woman’s Medical Society. In 2009, they were again notified of another woman’s death at the center that was also attributed to Gosnell’s negligence. A 22-year-old women died of sepsis when her uterus was perforated by Gosnell. The lawsuit that followed cost his insurance carrier almost a million dollar settlement for her wrongful death. All the information of that case was forwarded to the Heath Department. In addition to this, attorneys contacted the Department of Health representing several woman who received injuries from Gosnell’s medical practice, and still no investigation. 

Why no investigations from 1993 until 2010? The grand jury report pointed to political reasons. They noted:

Instead, the Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be “putting a barrier up to women” seeking abortions. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay. (From page 9 of the Grand Jury’s Report)

It gets even worse. The report looks at the victims as being products of race and their infants being babies without identities. The report states, “We think the reason no one acted is because the women in question were poor and of color, because the victims were infants without identities, and because the subject was the political football of abortion.” (From page 13) Members of the Black Pro-life Coalition believe it is Gosnell who is elitist and definitely racist. They pointed to the Gosnell clinic as participating in a black genocide for taking the lives of so many innocent black babies. They affirmed that abortion is the number one killer of black people and said that most abortion clinics, 70 percent in number, are found in minority black communities.

The Great Tragedy

According to the Grand Jury Report, Gosnell made a business of abortions. His specialty was ending late term pregnancies by killing the babies, many of them outside the womb. It was not patient-centered although he gave the appearance of concern. As soon as patients signed in, they understood it was a business, because the clinic immediately asked for payment “in full” and that usually meant cash. Gosnell’s practice was not about patient care, it was about economics. It was motivated by pure greed. Patients were treated according to what they could afford. If they wanted a painless abortion, they would have to pay for stronger painkillers. The payment for a late term abortion would be huge. In just a few hours, on a typical evening, Gosnell could bring in 10 to 15 thousand dollars with most of it in cash. The report stated, “The Women’s Medical Society stands as a monument to an absolute disdain for the health and safety of women, and in many cases of babies who were born alive in this filthy clinic.”

In another horrifying case, a patient, who was only identified as Makeda, said staff at the clinic led her to believe that abortions were a viable form of contraception. One nurse even assured her that “Brazilian women have at least 21 abortions each, and are still able to conceive.” This lady was lead to believe that aborting babies was like a form of birth control. “It was OK as long as you had the money,” she said. It was after the eighth abortion that she decided to settle down and wanted to start a family. To her great surprise, she found herself not able to have children. It was then she realized that not only was she mislead, but she also came to the conclusion that everything they told her at Gosnell’s clinic was wrong. Her response was to ask, “God, what was I thinking.”

What is the Real Problem?

Although Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society is considered a rogue abortion mill by Planned Parenthood and The National Abortion Federation (NAF), the NAF knew about Gosnell’s facility in 2009. Their very own representative noted that the clinic was in violation of the law. They said, “the clinic was deemed beyond redemption,” but they never reported Gosnell to the authorities. The local Planned Parenthood centers close to Gosnell’s clinic received complaints from women who were his patients. Sadly, the conspiracy of silence continued as Planned Parenthood, like their NAF partners in crime, also chose not to alert the authorities.

We live a crazy place where the basic principles of God’s Word are being violated every day. Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society is a horror all by itself, but that brings up another question. Just how many more abortion house of horrors like this are there going unchecked and undetected. Because there was testimony of him killing babies outside the womb, Gosnell was convicted of murder. But how many more babies were killed like that? That is a big unanswered question. According to God’s law, abortion is murder. It is a scientific fact that a new being is conceived when the female’s egg is fertilized in the womb. The fusion of the male and female’s genetic material creates a life. The child, even in the earliest stages of development, has the basic DNA information to become a complete person like you and I. In Psalm 139:13 -17, King David proclaims:

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them!

Christ chose the womb of a Jewish virgin as the place of the incarnation. In doing so, He gave the womb the distinction of being a very sacred place. Kerbit Gosnell and other abortionists have violated that sacred place. Mothers who made a choice to take the life of their innocent children, who could not speak for themselves, are co-conspirators in this lethal process. These young lives were sacrificed for money. As in Gosnell’s case, abortion clinics, like so many others, can generate millions and millions of dollars of income. Sometimes, these children were sacrificed for the sake of convenience. Often the mothers and fathers who decide to kill their babies were themselves children. Sometimes the mother is single, abandoned by the father, and pressured into taking what seems to be the easy way out.

In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates, that in 2009, the abortion rate ranged from a low of 57 abortions per 1,000 live births in Mississippi to a high of 713 abortions per 1,000 live births in New York City. It is interesting to note that several states do not report to the CDC. This includes California which accounts for more abortions than any other state in the union. For this reason, the CDC totals are routinely incomplete. In 2009, those who were single accounted for 85% of the total abortions and current rates indicate nearly 1/3 of the population of woman have had an abortion. 

These statistics are dangerous, because they reflect a total disregard for God’s Law. That includes an absolute disrespect for the precious gift of life that our Creator graciously gives to us. We are allowing a human genocide to continue. The population of the Western world continues to decline with abortion becoming the most popular form of birth control. God is holy. He is the righteous Judge. History has indicated that many of the great civilizations of the past, like the Roman Empire, fell as the result of corruption from within. Paul reminds us in his letter to the first century AD believers in Rome, “God’s wrath is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men,” Rom. 1:18. We also have the example concerning God’s righteous judgment in the account of the Genesis Flood. We are told that God’s judgment fell on the antediluvian world because, “The Lord saw great wickedness on the earth,” Gen. 6:5. In the same chapter of Genesis, we read, “the earth was corrupt and full of violence,” Gen. 6:11. It is further recorded, “And behold, I Myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die, Gen. 6:17. God was going to put an end, not only to the corrupted race of man, but the earth’s physical state would be forever changed by this cataclysmic judgment. We need to be aware that God’s justice will always prevail, as the Apostle Paul wrote, Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap, Gal. 6:7. This is true of Gosnell and his Women’s Medical Society, and all who take the innocent lives of babies in such a violent and inhuman fashion.

We are certain that God’s righteous judgment will prevail. We also want everyone to know that this same God, whose holiness demands that He judge the sinner, has also provided forgiveness and eternal life for all who place their faith in Him. There is good news in the gospel that the Creator became our Savior in the Person of the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth.