PHILADELPHIA, June 12, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell was set to enter a guilty plea today to charges that he illegally dispensed prescription drugs as another revenue stream for his West Philadelphia abortion facility. Instead, the hearing has been postponed until June 26.
Gosnell's legal counsel, Jack McMahon, has indicated Gosnell will not contest the drug charges.
Last month, a jury found Gosnell guilty of three counts of first-degree murder, as well as involuntary manslaughter and hundreds of violations of Pennsylvania state abortion law. Judge Jeffrey Minehart sentenced him to three consecutive life sentences. The abortionist escaped the death penalty by agreeing to waive his right to appeal.
Prosecutors say Gosnell wrote thousands of prescriptions for such highly addictive medications as OxyContin, alprazolam, and cough medicine containing codeine. According to NBC 10, Gosnell wrote as many 200 prescriptions in one night.
Patients paid him $20 per script and the employees an additional $10 or $20.
They accuse Gosnell of making at least $200,000 peddling prescriptions between June 2008 and February 2010.
In all, Gosnell earned an estimated $1.8 million a year at his filthy facility, located at 3801 Lancaster Avenue.
The allegation that Gosnell ran a “pill mill” in the mostly poor, minority neighborhood led police to raid the Women's Medical Society on February 10, 2010, where they stumbled upon the extent of his abortion-related crimes and unsanitary conditions.
The 281-page grand jury report dubbed his office a “house of horrors,” where he regularly snipped babies' spinal cords outside the womb as they struggled for life, sometimes cracking jokes about their size and vigor.
His patients barely fared better, sometimes dying in his care. Unsterilized instruments spread STDs as flea-ridden cats roamed, and defecated on, the premises freely. Fetal body parts were kept in jars, chopped up in garbage disposals, and left in plastic jugs.
Accusations that he peddled drugs in the inner city capped off his image as someone willing to harm his own people for financial gain, according to a collection of black pro-life leaders, who emphasized that in their community doctors like Gosnell are all-too familiar.
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“We have more than just the butcher of Philadelphia,” said Elder Levon Yuille of The Bible Church in Ypsilanti, Michigan, at a press conference last month. “We have individuals all over this country who are brutalizing women, often in the name of choice.”
“I believe everyone here,” he said motioning to the crowd behind him, “could name a Gosnell.” He named Dr. Robert Alexander, a Michigan abortionist turned out of multiple clinics for hurting many women during botched procedures and maintaining “filthy” conditions in his business.
Rev. Stephen Broden, senior pastor of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, named three others: Nicole Riley in Maryland, James Pendergraft of Florida, and Andrew Rutland of California, who was also accused of prescription irregularities.
“All four of these abortionists are black and working for personal gain,” Broden said.
He wondered if their victim's status caused the government to turn a blind eye.
“We are concerned that our government, both at the local and federal level, is slow to act and regulate Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry because they operate primarily in the black community and among poor people,” he said. Statistical analyses have found a majority of Planned Parenthood facilities are located in areas with a higher-than-average minority population.
Broden called on “Congress to investigate all abortion facilities in the black community and in the poor community, to stop all Gosnell abortuaries [and] shut these houses of horror down now.”
Others at the press conference, which was organized by Walter Hoye II of the National Black Pro-Life Coalition and Star Parker of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), sounded the same theme.
“You wouldn't tolerate it if women going into clinics for breast enhancements and Botox were coming out dead,” said Rev. Caesar LeFlore of Illinois, “so why in God's name is it so hard to get the government to ensure that we don't have ogres like Kermit Gosnell slaughtering our women and desecrating the bodies of our babies?”
Pastor Luke Robinson of Quinn Chapel AME Church in Frederick, Maryland, said certain visible leaders in the black community seemed to be missing in the battle against the abortionists that are victimizing their neighborhoods. “Where is the Black Congressional Caucus?” he asked. “Where is the NAACP? Where is the president?”