N.D. abortion law sent to governor
A measure that would outlaw abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the disputed premise that a fetus can by then feel pain was sent to the North Dakota governor Friday. Republican Gov. Jack Dalrymple already has signed three measures into law this year, including one that bans abortions when a heartbeat can be detected — as early as six weeks into a pregnancy and before some women even know they’re pregnant. Lawmakers’ intent is to challenge the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion up until viability, usually at 22 to 24 weeks. At least 10 states have passed bills banning abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy on the premise that a fetus can feel pain at that stage, but research is split on the theory.
Associated Press
They say they were just doing what the boss trained them to do. But eight former employees of a run-down West Philadelphia abortion clinic now face prison time for the work they did for Dr. Kermit Gosnell.
Three have pleaded guilty to third-degree murder. And Gosnell, 72, is on trial in the deaths of a patient and seven babies allegedly born alive.
In testimony at the capital murder trial this past month, an unlicensed doctor and untrained aides described long, chaotic days at the clinic. They said they performed grueling, often gruesome work for little more than minimum wage, paid by Gosnell under the table.
But for most, it was the best job they could find.
Unlicensed doctor Stephen Massof, 50, of Pittsburgh, said he could not get a U.S. medical residency after finishing medical school in Grenada and went to work for Gosnell as a “backup plan” after six years running a bar. He admitted killing two babies.
Eileen O’Neill, 56, had worked as a doctor in Louisiana but relinquished her medical license in 2000 to deal with “post-traumatic stress syndrome,” according to her 2011 grand jury testimony. She is the only employee on trial with Gosnell, fighting false billing and racketeering charges.
According to one colleague, O’Neill was increasingly upset at the line of people who came to Gosnell’s adjacent medical clinic for painkillers. And she was angry that he wasn’t helping her regain her license.
“She said: ‘All I do is break my neck for him all the time, and he never does anything for me. I’m going to have to do something about it,’ ” front desk worker Tina Baldwin testified this week, recalling a conversation with O’Neill.
Baldwin, like colleague Latosha Lewis, had trained to be a medical assistant at a for-profit vocational school before going to work for Gosnell in 2002.
Baldwin now faces at least a year in prison, and perhaps much longer, after pleading guilty to federal drug charges and state charges that include corruption of a minor.
Her daughter, Ashley, went to work for Gosnell when she was 15 because she was interested in medicine. Before long, she was working past midnight — and missing school — to help the nocturnal doctor perform abortions. More than once, she said, she saw a baby move after the procedure. Gosnell would explain to his teenage trainee that the movements were a last reflex during the death process.
Ashley Baldwin, now 22, was one of the few clinic workers not charged after the FBI raid.
Gosnell, once a gifted student in his working-class black neighborhood, had put his medical school education to work as a 1970s-era champion of drug treatment and legal abortions. But 30 years later, conditions inside his bustling clinic and his old neighborhood had deteriorated, according to trial testimony.
Defense lawyer Jack McMahon argues that no babies were born alive, and unforeseen complications caused the overdose death of the woman who died.
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