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As a full-time pro-life advocate, few things about the abortion industry surprise me anymore. It is routine for the abortion industry to trample on women in their quest to abort the next generation and profit in the process.
 
However, Kermit Gosnell’s ‘house of horrors’ clinic in Philadelphia has left even the most hardened observers aghast. After he was charged this week with the murder of seven newborn infants and third degree murder of a female patient, news broke about how his clinic contained flea-ridden cats, dismembered remains of late-term unborn children, and medical equipment suitable only for the closest trash dump. Gosnell has been in business for 30 years. Only God himself knows how many women Gosnell injured and babies he killed.
 
The absolute callousness of  Gosnell and his staff demonstrates the need for extensive government oversight of abortion clinics to ensure that they are meeting basic health and safety standards and are complying with state and local laws. In the annual Life List by Americans United for Life (AUL), Pennsylvania ranks as having the 3rd most protective laws in the nation. Pennsylvania mandates minimum health and safety standards for clinics, standards that Gosnell obviously ignored. The clinic was so bad, that investigators wore hazmat suits on their second visit.
 
This never should have happened. Despite dozens of lawsuits over the years, state inspectors never visited Gosnell’s facility until February 2010. And we also know that the abortion industry cannot be trusted to police itself. Reports now indicate that the National Abortion Federation, the professional association of abortionists, visited the facility just two months before the government did. Even though the inspector was “appalled by the vastly inadequate treatment provided there,” the NAF representative failed to report Gosnell to the authorities.
 
Obviously more must be done. AUL is examining legislative options to address the situation. However, this episode demonstrates a complete failure of authorities in Pennsylvania to even enforce existing rules and regulations to prevent this kind of barbarism from occurring. State regulators around the country should step up the activities of their own investigatory units to ensure their own ‘house of horrors’ isn’t operating in their state.