Kermit Gosnell is not an 'outlier,' pro-life advocates warn; others are killing babies born alive
Douglas Karpen
In 2012, four women who worked for abortionist Dr. Douglas Karpen provided Operation Rescue with photographic evidence that Karpen was killing born-alive infants. Sullenger said the women had heard about the Gosnell case and how he killed infants born alive at his clinic by snipping their necks.
The abortionists at the Houston-area abortion clinic where the women worked also killed born-alive infants in this way, they said. Before Gosnell’s trial generated attention, Sullenger said the women thought killing babies delivered alive was a “normal procedure.”
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“One day, I have these images pop up on my cell phone,” the Operation Rescue leader said. “One of the clinic workers sent me pictures of a baby that, according to them, had been born alive and killed by having his neck twisted to the point where it actually tore the skin on his neck.”
Other images depicted babies allegedly born alive and then killed by having their throats slit. Sullenger said that the babies’ ages were difficult to determine. But physicians from the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists estimated they were late second-trimester babies based on the development of their feet.
In 2013, Operation Rescue spurred the Harris County District Attorney’s Office to investigate Karpen and the three abortion clinics he oversaw: Northpark Medical Group in Dallas, and the Texas Ambulatory Surgery Center and Aaron Women’s Clinic, both based in Houston. The grand jury failed to indict him later that year. According to Sullenger, they never even saw the photographs of the born-alive infants.
The FBI announced in a 2018 letter to Operation Rescue that it had received a criminal referral based on a 2016 House Select Panel on Infant Lives. Sullenger said that the FBI attempted to investigate Karpen for money fraud, but nothing came from it.
According to AbortionDocs.org, Operation Rescue’s site for tracking abortionists and unsafe clinic practices, Karpen is still performing abortions in Texas.
