Erin Fuchs, Business Inside

There was more shocking testimony in the murder trial against Kermit Gosnell on Thursday when a woman said she helped run his illegal abortion clinic when she was 15 years old.

Gosnell, 72, allegedly killed live babies in a filthy Philadelphia clinic called the Women’s Medical Society that exploited low-income and immigrant women.

Former clinic worker Ashley Baldwin, who’s now 22, testified that she helped Gosnell perform abortions and saw five aborted babies moving and breathing, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. One baby even screamed, Baldwin said.

“They just looked like regular babies,” she said, adding that Gosnell once joked that “this baby is going to walk me home.”

Gosnell is accused of killing seven live infants by “snipping” their spinal cords and being responsible for the death of a 41-year-old immigrant who died from a Demerol overdose at his clinic.

Ashley Baldwin isn’t facing any criminal charges, but her mother Tina Baldwin is charged with corrupting a minor because she got her daughter a job at the Women’s Medical Society.

A graphic 281-page grand jury report that lays out the allegations against Gosnell has more details about Ashley Baldwin’s nightmarish after-school job.

Ashley was a full-time high school student when she worked for Gosnell but sometimes worked at his clinic for as many as 50 hours a week, according to the report. As part of his standard procedure, Gosnell allegedly had women deliver live babies in his absence. He came back to kill the “squirming” infants, according to the grand jury report.

His teenage assistant was often in charge of taking care of those women when they were in labor, according to the grand jury report. Ashley told the grand jury that she sent the women to deliver their babies in toilets and phoned Gosnell to say he was needed at the clinic.

The high school student was also charged with giving doses of heavy-duty pain meds, according to the grand jury report.

“In truth, Ashley often worked until 2 a.m. and performed the duties of a registered nurse or a doctor,” the grand jury report read. “When asked who was in charge of the clinic before Gosnell arrived, Ashley testified: ‘Me.'”

Gosnell’s lawyer says no infants were killed at the facility and they were still moving because they were in “death throes,” according to the Inquirer.

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http://www.businessinsider.com/ashley-baldwin-gosnell-testimony-2013-4?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29

Please also read the following related story:

Horrifying Illegal Abortion Clinic Wasn’t Inspected For 17 Years Due To Pro-Choice Policy

Erin Fuchs Business Insider

Perhaps the worst part of the horrifying allegations against a Philadelphia abortion clinic is that it operated for 17 years before anyone did anything.

72-year-old Kermit Gosnell has been charged with killing seven babies and accused of killing hundreds in gruesome and illegal late-term abortions.

Prosecutors claim Gosnell “snipped” the necks of viable babies and exploited low-income, immigrant women who couldn’t get abortions anywhere else.

Gosnell — who wasn’t licensed to practice obstetrics and gynecology — is also accused of giving women venereal diseases by using dirty instruments, and of causing the death of a 41-year-old immigrant from Nepal. His lawyer insisted in court Wednesday that the clinic never killed any babies.

The clinic was not inspected from 1993 to 2010, when FBI agents finally raided the place. They found moaning women covered in blood-stained blankets and jars with severed fetus feet, according to the 281-page grand jury report.

The grand jury report that lays out allegations against Gosnell has an entire section called “How did this go on so long?” The simple answer is politics.

Pennsylvania’s health department stopped routine inspections of abortion facilities in the state after Tom Ridge, a pro-choice Republican, became governor in 1995.

Health department lawyers “changed their legal opinions and advice to suit the policy preferences of different governors,” health department official Janet Staloski said in grand jury testimony. In this case, she said the state didn’t want to be “putting a barrier up to women” who wanted abortions.

In 1999, high-level Pennsylvania officials met to consider starting up regular inspections again but decided not to, state lawyer Kenneth Brody testified, according to the grand jury report. He told the grand jury that officials were concerns that abortion clinics wouldn’t meet inspection standards and then there “would be less abortion facilities.”

The state’s politics-driven policy continued until the gruesome allegations regarding Gosnell came to light.

Inspections finally resumed in 2010 after more than 15 years. When pro-life Republican Gov. Tom Corbett took office in 2011, he asked officials to issue a report on the state’s failure to inspect facilities for so long, the AP reported.

By February 2011, Corbett had announced sweeping changes at the health department — including routine, unannounced inspections of abortion facilities.

For more on this story go to:

http://www.businessinsider.com/kermit-gosnell-clinic-not-inspected-2013-4