Abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell awaits verdict in murder case, late-term abortion death of Karnamaya Mongar
The jury in the murder trial of a Philadelphia doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic serving low-income women ended its fourth day of deliberations Friday without reaching verdicts.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the Women’s Medical Society Clinic, could face the death penalty if convicted by the jury in Common Pleas Court.
Karnamaya Mongar died in 2009 after an abortion by Kermit Gosnell
The jury asked for help Friday distinguishing among the four babies Gosnell is accused of killing. Staff members at Gosnell’s clinic have testified that they saw each one move, breathe or “screeches” before death.
Known to jurors as Baby Boy A, Baby C, Baby D, and Baby E, clarification was needed to which ones were killed after they were born alive, or minutes earlier, as fetuses in utero.
Dr. Gosnell would perform many of the abortions by injecting digoxin into mothers to cause fetal demise, then inducing labor to expel the dead fetus.
Clinic staff said they supposedly-dead fetuses moved, showing signs of life. “[Baby E] made noises, a whine like my baby,” the prosecutor said, quoting a clinic worker.
Another clinic worker testified that Baby D appeared to make swimming motions after being delivered into a toilet, from which a doctor’s assistant pulled it out and cut its neck.
The defense argues that any movements observed were simply involuntary spasms.
Dr. Gosnell also faces a third-degree murder charge for the death of Karnamaya Mongar, 41, who overdosed from anesthesia and painkillers after coming into Gosnell’s clinic as a patient.
According to Grand Jury Testimony, one former employee described her anesthesia training as “a 15-minute description by Gosnell and reading a chart he had posted in a cabinet.”
Dr. Gosnell is also charged with performing 24 abortions beyond 24 weeks. In the state of Pennsylvania abortions past 24 weeks are illegal, except in the case that the pregnancy endangers a mother’s life. After 24 weeks of gestation, a fetus may survive outside of the womb.
