DA Faults Abortion Clinic Physician, State Oversights
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- During his briefing this morning outlining murder charges against a West Philadelphia abortion doctor (see related story), Philadelphia's district attorney noted that this case will be used by those on both sides of the abortion debate.
DA Seth Williams says the criminal grand jury did not wade into the moral implications of abortion. Rather, he said, it looked into what he calls "disregard of the law, and the disdain for the lives and health of mothers and infants."
He says the grand jury found that in case after case Dr. Kermit Gosnell and his assistants "induced labor, forced the live births of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, and eighth months of pregnancy, and then killed those babies."
Hear the DA's entire press conference in this CBS Philly podcast...
Williams says the doctor "knowingly and systematically mistreated patients" to the point that one died, and "cut short the lives of living, breathing babies who would have survived with proper medical attention."
He also says several oversight agencies, including the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Pennsylvania Department of State (which oversees individual physicians) repeatedly chose to do nothing despite being repeatedly faced with evidence of wrongdoing.
Reported by Steve Tawa, KYW Newsradio 1060.
