Kermit Gosnell, the West Philadelphia doctor who was convicted of conducting illegal abortions and killing three babies, died earlier this month while serving his prison sentence. He was 85.
Gosnell died March 1 at a hospital outside of the Pennsylvania prison system, the Associated Press reported Monday. The cause of his death was not released. Before being hospitalized, he had been incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution-Smithfield, about 60 miles from Pittsburgh.
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Gosnell spent decades working as an abortion doctor in West Philly. In 2010, investigators searched Gosnell’s clinic at 3801 Lancaster Ave., known as the Women’s Medical Society, and found jars of body parts, bloody furniture and dirty medical instruments.
At his clinic, described as a “house of horrors,” Gosnell performed abortions beyond the state’s 24-week limit, and killed babies that were delivered still moving or breathing by “snipping” their spines, former employees testified. A 2011 grand jury report described additional deplorable conditions and alleged Gosnell had committed other crimes that could not be prosecuted, because records had been destroyed.
In 2013, he was found guilty of first-degree murder for the deaths of three babies and involuntary manslaughter for the death of a woman who overdosed on anesthetics following a procedure. He also was convicted of performing late-term abortions and violating Pennsylvania’s requirement that patients wait 24 hours after a counseling session to have an abortion. He received three consecutive life sentences.
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Kermit Gosnell’s abortion clinic at 3801 Lancaster Ave. is seen in 2009.
Later that year, Gosnell pleaded guilty to running a “pill mill” to illegally distribute controlled substances and received an additional 30-year sentence.
State Health Department officials had not conducted routine inspections of all its abortion clinics for 15 years by the time investigators raided Gosnell’s clinic. Following that discovery, two state health officials were fired and the state implemented stricter rules for abortion clinics.
Last November, nonprofit reBuilding Blocks was named conservator of the former clinic building, which Gosnell owned. That group plans to bring the building up to code and resell it, WHYY reported.