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HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania, February 16, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Several state employees in Pennsylvania have been fired as part of the fallout after investigators stumbled upon the horrifying conditions at the abortion facility run by Kermit Gosnell, years after state officials had stopped enforcing health standards at abortion clinics.

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Gosnell and eight of his employees have been charged with killing at least seven children born alive after late-term abortions. His abortion clinic, dubbed the “house of horrors” by District Attorney Seth Williams, was only brought to light last year after police began investigating the botched-abortion death of Bhutan native Karnamaya Mongar under Gosnell’s care.

Investigators say Gosnell and his unlicensed staff killed hundreds of newborns by severing their spinal cords because they were too unskilled to perform the typical abortion method, which involves lethal injection in the womb.

A grand jury last month expressed dismay at the state of the facility, where blood stained the floor, rust chewed away medical equipment, and the dismembered remains of unborn or newly-born infants crammed various containers, including a freezer and cat food bags.

The Grand Jury also discovered that a representative of the National Abortion Federation visited the facility shortly before investigators did, but she did nothing about the situation. They also said that Pennsylvania health authorities were “inexcusable” in never lifting a finger to check the conditions there.

“Pennsylvania is not a third-world country. There were several oversight agencies that stumbled upon and should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago. But none of them did, not even after Karnamaya Mongar’s death,” wrote the jurors in their investigation report. They specifically faulted the Pennsylvania Department of Health and Department of State, both of which ignored repeated complaints from physicians, lawyers hired by Gosnell’s patients, and the Delaware County medical examiner.

Only one health department representative took action, but the detailed reports filed weeks before Mongar died of an anesthesia overdose were never followed up on, the grand jury reported.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett on Tuesday confirmed that four attorneys and two supervisors at the two state offices were fired or had resigned on Friday.

“This doesn’t even rise to the level of government run amok,” Corbett said, according to the Associated Press. “It was government not running at all. To call this unacceptable doesn’t say enough. It’s despicable.”

As the grand jury report noted, the oversight problem arose after the strongly pro-life Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey gave up his seat to abortion advocate Tom Ridge in 1995.

“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,” said the grand jury.

Ed Rendell, the pro-abortion governor of Pennsylvania when the clinic was exposed last year, said he was “flabbergasted” to learn that the Department of Health was not investigating abortion clinics.