By Dave Andrusko

Day after day more details flesh out the ghastly "House of Horrors" that was abortionist Kermit Gosnell's Women's Medical Society in the Mantua section of West Philadelphia. Thanks to the year-long work of a Grand Jury, last week Gosnell was charged with eight counts of murder: seven babies, who the Grand Jury says were born alive and then killed when their spinal cords were severed; and 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar, who allegedly overdosed on anesthetics prescribed by Gosnell. Nine former Gosnell employees also were charged, four with murder.

Officials in Pennsylvania are reacting to the wave of publicity generated by a story that is unspeakably violent and which begs for an answer to the question "why state officials failed to detect or stop the allegedly murderous activities at a Philadelphia abortion clinic as detailed last week in a grand jury report," as the Philadelphia Inquirer described the situation today. At least 46 civil lawsuits have been filed against Gosnell in the past.

Only in his second week in office, pro-life Gov. Corbett "has ordered secretaries of the Departments of Health and State to review the 260-page report that charged a doctor with eight counts of murder," the Inquirer reported. "The governor directed both cabinet members to send him recommendations about how to improve agency oversight of health facilities. 'He thought what happened was horrific,' said Corbett spokeswoman Janet Kelly. 'He has asked them to look at the situation and get back to him with recommendations on how to change the system.'"

Corbett has also directed acting Secretary of State Carol Aichele, and acting Health Secretary Eli Avila, the two agencies that oversee medical facilities, including abortion clinics, to review the Grand Jury findings. Legislators are also reportedly looking to propose measures including annual state inspections of abortion clinics.

"The most disturbing question which must be answered is, 'How was this allowed to go on for so long?' " state Sen. Jake Corman told the Inquirer. No doubt there will be resistance to Corman's proposal that would mandate minimum health and safety standards "for all abortion clinics - the same safety standards which other health care facilities must meet in the state."

Such law are routinely--and fiercely--opposed by pro-abortionists.

CNN reports that last week the family of Karnamaya Mongar filed a lawsuit against Gosnell's practice seeking damages, according to the family's attorney, Bernard Smalley.

"We want justice, this doctor has to be out of that clinic or he should not be treating anybody," Damber Ghalley, her brother, told CNN yesterday. "And the things that happen to my sister, I don't want to happen to anybody in the future."

"All the happiness is gone, they miss their mother every day and night," Ghalley said, a reference to Mongar's four children.

As part of a humanitarian resettlement program, Mongar came to United States in July 2009, Smalley said. She had spent 18 years living in a bamboo hut in a Nepalese refugee camp. 19 weeks into her pregnancy Mongar was referred to Gosnell by a Washington, DC clinic.

At Gosnell's clinic, "an unlicensed high school student" -- who got instructions from Gosnell over a cell phone -- gave the woman anesthesia, and there was no equipment to resuscitate her once things went wrong," Smalley told CNN.

Each day women whom Gosnell aborted have come forward to denounce the 69-year-old Gosnell, who is being held in jail without bail. "Phones are ringing off the hook. There are scores of women," District Attorney Christine Wechsler told ABC News.

By now some of the horrific details brought to light by the Grand Jury are well known. The Grand Jury's 261-page report calls the Women's Medical Society "a baby charnel house."

Filthy almost beyond belief, the description resembles the houses of hoarders. Only instead of dead cats and dogs, "scattered throughout, in cabinets, in the basement, in a freezer, in jars and bags and plastic jugs, were fetal remains."

"The people who ran this sham medical practice included no doctors other than Gosnell himself, and not even a single nurse. …Everyone called them 'Doctor,' even though they, and Gosnell, knew they weren't. Among the rest of the staff, there was no one with any medical licensing or relevant certification at all," according to the report. "But that didn't stop them from making diagnoses, performing procedures, administering drugs. Because the real business of the 'Women's Medical Society' was not health; it was profit. There were two primary parts to the operation. By day it was a prescription mill; by night an abortion mill."

Under the subhead, "Murder in Plain Sight," the Grand Jury report says, "With abortion, as with prescriptions, Gosnell's approach was simple: keep volume high, expenses low – and break the law. That was his competitive edge. … At the Women's Medical Society, the only question that really mattered was whether you had the cash. Too young? No problem. Didn't want to wait? Gosnell provided same-day service. The real key to the business model, though, was this: Gosnell catered to the women who couldn't get abortions elsewhere – because they were too pregnant."

After talking about the excruciating pain Gosnell and his staff routinely put women through, the Grand Jury wrote, "When you perform late-term 'abortions' by inducing labor, you get babies. Live, breathing, squirming babies. By 24 weeks, most babies born prematurely will survive if they receive appropriate medical care. But that was not what the Women's Medical Society was about. Gosnell had a simple solution for the unwanted babies he delivered: he killed them. He didn't call it that. He called it 'ensuring fetal demise.' The way he ensured fetal demise was by sticking scissors into the back of the baby's neck and cutting the spinal cord. He called that 'snipping.' Over the years, there were hundreds of 'snippings.' Sometimes, if Gosnell was unavailable, the 'snipping' was done by one of his fake doctors, or even by one of the administrative staff. But all the employees of the Women's Medical Society knew.

"Everyone there acted as if it wasn't murder at all."

There is, unfortunately much, much more like this at www.phila.gov/districtattorney/PDFs/GrandJuryWomensMedical.pdf.

Gosnell's next court appearance is scheduled for February 9.

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