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PHILADELPHIA, May 15, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The day a Philadelphia jury convicted Kermit Gosnell of first-degree murder for severing the spines of newborn babies, USA Today published an op-ed by the CEO of an abortion advocacy organization that failed to report his “house of horrors” to the authorities.

Vicki Saporta, CEO of National Abortion Federation (NAF), instead blamed Gosnell's unsanitary clinic and lack of medical ethics on the pro-life movement.

In Monday's op-ed, Saporta wrote, “This stigma around abortion — combined with unnecessary restrictions on women's access to care — helps create opportunities for substandard providers like Gosnell to prey on vulnerable women.”

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However, according to the Grand Jury report, an NAF inspector observed Gosnell and his staff engaging in unsafe and illegal activity but did not pass that information on to Pennsylvania state health officials.

The report noted that an NAF member paid a visit to the Women's Medical Society on December 14-5, 2009, after Gosnell applied for membership to the NAF.

“It was the worst abortion clinic she had ever inspected,” the report noted.

NAF denied Gosnell's membership bid. But the unnamed inspector kept what Gosnell's practices to herself.

Ironically, Saporta has touted her own organization's high standards as a reason to see Gosnell as an “extreme outlier.”

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“In addition to complying with state and federal regulations, many abortion providers are members of professional organizations like NAF,” Saporta wrote. “NAF members must complete a rigorous application process, including a site visit, and must comply with our Clinical Policy Guidelines, which set the standards for quality abortion care in North America.”

“Women can be assured of receiving high-quality care at NAF member facilities,” she wrote.

USA Today, which is one of the most widely read news sources in the country, gave Saporta a forum on Monday, the day jurors convicted the 72-year-old, late-term abortionist of hundreds of counts of illegal actions, such as those the NAF representative witnessed.

The abortion industry leader used the national soapbox to rail against tightening health or safety restrictions on her clients.

“Additional regulations are not necessary,” she wrote. “Abortion was already highly regulated in Pennsylvania, and no level of restrictions would have stopped Gosnell, as he blatantly chose to operate outside of established standards of care and the law.”

Her assessment flies in the face of the grand jury report, which related that pro-abortion leaders in state government made a conscious decision to end all on-site inspections in 1995, under pro-abortion Republican Governor Tom Ridge.

“The Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all,” the report stated. “With the change of administration from Governor [Robert] Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be ‘putting a barrier up to women’ seeking abortions.”

The tacit understanding was that many of the state's abortion providers could not, or would not, meet state standards.

“Even nail salons in Pennsylvania are monitored more closely for client safety,” according to the report.

Saporta has a history of defending the nation's most notorious abortionist. She told ABC News, “The fact that [Gosnell] wasn’t providing [post-abortive] care later and wasn’t ensuring fetal demise and not operating under any established standards of care and outside of the law is the problem in this case.”

She continued the tradition in Monday's editorial, writing, “We must not use the Gosnell case to further stigmatize or make generalizations about abortion providers and the quality of care available in the United States.”