EDITOR’S NOTE: The article contains descriptions and accounts of abortion that could be considered disturbing.
With days left until an election that could enshrine abortion in the Ohio Constitution through all nine months of pregnancy if voters pass state Issue 1, Ohioans can observe a hidden reality of abortion.
Photos taken at the crime scene in Kermit Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic are on display through Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 7, in an office space in Columbus’ Short North arts district at 1241 N. High St.
In 2013, Gosnell was found guilty of 237 crimes, including first-degree murder in the deaths of babies who were born in his abortion clinic, known as Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society, which he had operated in Philadelphia since 1979.
Gosnell was also found guilty of infanticide and hundreds of counts of uninformed consent to an abortion. A grand jury sentenced him to three terms of life in prison.
Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, the producers of “Gosnell: The Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer” movie (2018) and “Serial Killer: A True Crime Podcast,” brought the photos to Columbus.
The photos, which were not challenged by Gosnell or his defense team in court and are accepted as evidence, McAleer said, are on display for the first time outside of the courtroom where Gosnell was convicted.
The exhibition, “EVIDENCE: Crime Scene Photos from the Trial of America’s Biggest Serial Killer,” includes photos taken by the FBI, the Philadelphia Police Department and the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office.
“There’s a real tradition in America of crime scene exhibitions, and we thought, you know, this cries out for that,” McAleer said. “The great thing of these photographs is they’re not taken by activists. They’re not pro-life photographs; they’re not pro-choice photographs. They were taken as evidence.”
The exhibit features photos of an unsanitary waiting room and procedure rooms and faulty medical equipment used by Gosnell and his staff.
Gosnell used single-use medical instruments on multiple women, cross-contaminating and infecting them with sexually transmitted diseases, according to records, and he had unlicensed teenage girls administer anesthesia to patients.
The exhibit includes photos of the remains of babies that were discovered when law enforcement raided Gosnell’s clinic. Gosnell killed babies born alive in his clinic by cutting their spinal cord with scissors.
Photos of the babies’ remains are covered by curtains in a separate room of the exhibit, so people can decide whether to view the images.
“They need to look behind the curtains and see the reality,” McAleer said.
Baby feet were found in jars, and he said many babies’ bodies were found in freezers and refrigerators in the clinic. He said he believes there were hundreds more bodies, but Gosnell likely disposed of the remains.
McAleer, who is a journalist, stumbled upon the Gosnell trial 10 years ago while in Philadelphia promoting his film “FrackNation,” a documentary about fracking. He visited the courthouse on his day off to attend trials.
McAleer walked into the Gosnell trial and “there on the wall was some of these photographs blown up full size,” which are now on display at the exhibit.
“I’ve covered the troubles in Northern Ireland, in Eastern Europe after communism, Vietnam – I was a journalist in Indonesia,” he said. “I’ve never heard a more shocking testimony.”
But, McAleer said, “The most shocking thing of all, actually, was behind me: the empty press benches.”
He said the media didn’t cover the trial because they “don’t want to shine a negative spotlight on abortion.”
Gosnell was found guilty on more than 20 counts of illegal late-term abortions. Abortion was legal “to 24 weeks in Philadelphia, which is an enormous length of time,” McAleer said.
If voters in Ohio pass Issue 1, it would be legal in the state to abort babies at any stage of gestation until the moment of birth, including fully formed 9-month-old babies.
The pregnant woman’s treating physician, who can be the abortionist, would be the only individual needing to sign off, and the state of Ohio would be prohibited from interfering.
“When you ease access and make it a constitutional right, as they’re going to do here in Ohio maybe, well then, that just gives carte blanche to bad actors to move into the state,” McAleer said.
Pennsylvania is one of the most regulated, or controlled, states in America, he said, and abortionists, such as Gosnell, know they can “act with impunity,” or without punishment. He said, “There’s no doubt there’s probably a Gosnell in every state.
“It’s a great slice of reality,” he said. “It shows that you can do anything you like, and the government will allow you to do anything you like, as long as you say it’s in an abortion clinic.
“Gosnell was Philadelphia’s biggest drug dealer and selling opioids. He was murdering women – actually, murdering minority women. He was murdering babies. He was abusing staff. He was cheating his taxes. He was doing everything, but nobody wanted to look because he was running an abortion clinic.”
Two minority women, Karnamaya Mongar and Semika Shaw, died from being treated at the clinic, McAleer said. Gosnell was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in Mongar’s death.
Both women died after botched abortion procedures at the clinic, but that “wasn’t enough to rise the bureaucrats of Harrisburg to drive down to Philadelphia and have a look,” McAleer said.
Abortion clinics in Pennsylvania were required to be inspected every year, McAleer said. The Pennsylvania Department of Health received multiple complaints from doctors, nurses and whistleblowers, or employees who allege wrongdoing by their employer, but the state did not take action.
McAleer said he believes this is because Pennsylvania held abortion as a “sacred right” and a “sacred rite.” For some people, he said, abortion is a “sacrament.”
It is McAleer’s goal to bring the photos to “every state in the union,” beginning with Ohio.
He encouraged Ohioans to visit the exhibit and view the photos before Election Day.
“They’re accepted as real records of what is going on in America today and what is being allowed to go on in America, and we think that people in Ohio need to see them before they vote on anything, and the people of America need to see them before they vote on anything,” he said.