The Planned Parenthood-Gosnell Connection

Shortly after the Kermit Gosnell verdict came out on Monday afternoon, Planned Parenthood was trying to distance themselves from the convicted murderer, tweeting:

A just verdict. The jury has rightly convicted #Gosnell for his appalling crimes, ensuring no woman is victimized by him ever again.

— Planned Parenthood (@PPact) May 13, 2013

Abortion itself is the appalling victimization of women. But what did Planned Parenthood do to make sure no woman was victimized by Gosnell when they had the chance? Absolutely nothing.

Dayle Steinberg, Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania’s president and chief executive, admitted that they knew about the terrible conditions at Gosnell’s abortion business. As Philly.com reports:

Steinberg said that when Gosnell was in practice, women would sometimes come to Planned Parenthood for services after first visiting Gosnell’s West Philadelphia clinic, and would complain to staff about the conditions there.

“We would always encourage them to report it to the Department of Health,” Steinberg said as she sat with Steinem before Tuesday’s events.

They knew. They knew and they did nothing. Planned Parenthood took their money, then left these victimized women to deal with the problem on their own. They left more women to be victimized by Gosnell – for decades.

It is because of pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood’s opposition to abortion facility regulations that Gosnell’s house of horrors went without inspection for 17 years. They told women to report Gosnell to the Department of Health but, as the Grand Jury report said,

Instead, the Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro. 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.

This is the fox guarding the hen house. And now Planned Parenthood is using the very same “barrier” arguments today to oppose any new safety regulations, even though that’s what allowed Gosnell to continue to operate. They complain about “onerous” regulations like widening hallways in the new Virginia regulations, but the grand jury reports hallway regulations could have saved Gosnell victim Karnamaya Mongar and made it difficult to help other patients:

T]here might have been some slim hope of reviving Mrs. Mongar. The paramedics were able to generate a weak pulse. But, because of the cluttered hallways and the padlocked emergency door, it took them over twenty minutes just to find a way to get her out of the building.

…They discovered they could not maneuver stretchers through the building’s narrow hallways to reach the patients (just as emergency personnel had been obstructed from reaching Mrs. Mongar).

If Planned Parenthood thinks Gosnell’s crimes are “appalling,” what do they call their own facilities’ dangerous, unsanitary conditions, and practices of infanticide? What do they call the fact that they kill 915 preborn (and maybe sometimes born) children every day?

Planned Parenthood and Gosnell share an appalling disrespect for the lives and health of women and children, the only difference is that Planned Parenthood spends millions on marketing and PR:

• Last weekend, an ambulance was called to Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger Center in New York City and photos show emergency officials hurriedly placing a young girl in an ambulance. And you know something has gone seriously wrong when an abortion facility allows an ambulance to park out front with its lights flashing, instead of asking emergency personnel to keep their sirens off and pull up in the back alley – wouldn’t want other patients to see that you’ve botched another abortion, that’s just bad for business.

• In April, a Planned Parenthood in Delaware had to stop doing surgical abortions because of unsafe and unsanitary conditions similar to the ones found at Gosnell’s abortion facility. One nurse said of the operating room, “It’s not washed down; it’s not even cleaned off. It has bloody drainage on it.” She also said patients “could be at risk of getting hepatitis, even AIDS.” The abortion business had sent 5 women to the emergency room since January. Nurses said, “It was just unsafe. I couldn’t tell you how ridiculously unsafe it was,” and quit over concerns that they could be held liable when the next patient was harmed. Delaware is the first state since Roe v. Wade to have zero surgical abortion facilities – because 4 clinics in recent years have had to shut down due to health violations, including two Planned Parenthoods.

• In March, a Planned Parenthood official from Florida testified that a baby born alive during an abortion should be allowed to be killed, saying, “We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician.” Gosnell routinely killed babies born alive after an abortion – often by cutting their spinal cords. Apparently that’s a “decision” Planned Parenthood supports being left up to “physicians” like Gosnell.

• Last July, a Planned Parenthood in Chicago botched the abortion of Tonya Reaves and failed to seek emergency medical assistance for her for 5 1/2 hours, which ultimately led to her death. Similarly, Gosnell delayed calling 911 for his non-responsive patient, Karnamaya Mongar, who died as a result of her abortion and lack of medical treatment when things went wrong.

• In 2008, a federally-funded New Jersey Planned Parenthood nurse told Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins that the only abortion procedure they do after 22 weeks involves inducing delivery. When she asked what happens if the baby is born alive, she was stunned when she replied simply, “It does happen, where it’s still alive…but it wouldn’t be able to survive on its own, so eventually the baby does die.” This is outright infanticide and proves it is still being practiced routinely in our nation and not just by “rogue” abortionists, as Planned Parenthood would lead you to believe.

The bottom-line is this: Kermit Gosnell is not unique. He is not the exception, he is the rule. He represents “business as usual” for Planned Parenthood and Big Abortion. Thankfully, he will never victimize another woman again, but Planned Parenthood continues on with the same appalling practices and conditions – and half a billion dollars of your tax money.

Learn more about Planned Parenthood’s dirty and corrupt practices at PlannedParenthoodProject.com