Grand Jury: Under Pro-Abort GOP Governor, Pennsylvania Stopped Annual Inspections of Abortion Clinics

April 16, 2013
By Fred Lucas

(CNSNews.com) – The administration (1995-2001) of Pennsylvania’s Republican Gov. Tom Ridge stopped annual inspections of abortion clinics, according to the grand jury report on Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who is currently on trial in Philadelphia charged with the first-degree murder of seven born babies.

Under Democratic Gov. Bob Casey Sr., who preceded Ridge, the state had conducted annual inspections of the clinic, the report said.

Casey was pro-life; Ridge was pro-abortion.

“The politics in question were not anti-abortion, but pro-,” the grand jury report said. “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. Better to leave clinics to do as they pleased, even though, as Gosnell proved, that meant both women and babies would pay.”

After serving as Pennsylvania governor from 1995-2001, Ridge resigned to serve first as President George W. Bush’s homeland security advisor shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, then as the first secretary of the new Department of Homeland Security in 2003. Ridge was frequently mentioned in press accounts in 2000 and 2008 as a potential GOP vice presidential pick.

Gosnell’s trial began last month and is expected to stretch until the end of April. The grand jury report was released in January 2011 and provides gruesome details of Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic.

Gosnell is charged with murder in the third degree for the death of Karnamaya Mongar in November 2009. He is also facing seven first-degree murder charges for the deaths of infants who were killed after being born alive during the sixth, seventh and eighth month of pregnancy.

The state has also charged Gosnell with infanticide, conspiracy, abortion at 24 or more weeks, abuse of a corpse, theft, corruption of minors, solicitation and other related offenses, according to the District Attorney’s office in Philadelphia. In addition to the state charges, Gosnell is facing federal drug charges for allegedly writing illegal prescriptions.

There were severe problems with the Gosnell clinic even before Ridge was elected governor in 1994. However, the already scant inspections were eliminated after Ridge took office, according to the grand jury report.

“Numerous violations were already apparent [in 1989], but Gosnell got a pass when he promised to fix them,” the grand jury report said. “Site reviews in 1992 and 1993 also noted various violations, but again failed to ensure they were corrected.”

“But at least the department had been doing something up to that point, however ineffectual,” reads the report. “After 1993, even that pro forma effort came to an end. Not because of administrative ennui, although there had been plenty. Instead, the Pennsylvania Department of Health abruptly decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all.”

CNSNews.com sought to contact Ridge on Friday and Monday by telephone and e-mail for comment through his company Ridge Global. Neither Ridge nor a spokesperson responded.

Referring to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, the grand jury report stated, “Senior legal counsel Kenneth Brody insisted that the department had no legal obligation to monitor abortion clinics, even though it exercised such a duty until the Ridge administration, and exercised it again as soon as Gosnell became big news.”

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