A dirty little secret of abortion has been revealed recently. At an abortion facility in Philadelphia, Women’s Medical Society, run by Dr. Kermit Gosnell, shocking discoveries have outraged many---even those who favor abortion rights.
         A couple of women have died from abortions performed there.
         Babies slated for late term abortions had been delivered, only to have their spinal cords cut by scissors.
         Fetal remains had been bagged up and stored throughout the clinic---including in a refrigerator, where staff members had put their bag lunches.
         The pickled feet of aborted babies had been preserved in jars that were on display in a back room.
         Old blood stains had not been completely removed from various parts of the clinic. Generally, conditions at the clinic were described by investigators as "deplorable and unsanitary."
         Federal agents raided the clinic and shut it down in February 2010. In January 2011, indictments against Gosnell from a grand jury have come down, and the news of Philadelphia’s "House of Horrors" was reported.
         Where is the outcry among the feminists?
        Pro-lifers wonder: Is this an anomaly or is this the tip of the iceberg?
        Dr. Gosnell made millions of dollars in the abortion business, while state officials apparently looked the other way for decades.
         I once interviewed a lady who had the goal of becoming a millionaire through abortion. Her name is Carol Everett. She now runs a humanitarian agency in Texas to help poor women at risk. She used to be a successful abortionist, as part owner of a network of women’s clinics in the Dallas area in the 1980s.
        Carol Everett got into the business because she herself had had an abortion, and she felt the need to justify what she had done. "Nothing worked after my abortion," she observed. So, if "in some twisted way," she could talk other women into having an abortion, maybe her own abortion wouldn’t seem so wrong.
        Once she got into the abortion business, she became hooked on the money and was well on her way to her million-dollar goal. She calculated that she profited from 35,000 abortions.
But she underwent a religious conversion---a true "come to Jesus" moment. This soon led to her leaving the field. Now she "plays for the other team."
        Carol Everett said that for many in that line of work abortion is all about money---and it’s good money, except it’s blood money. (In fact, that’s the title of a book she wrote on her own experience with the abortion industry, Blood Money.)
        She says that in the abortion clinic, everybody knows of the humanity of the unborn child. "In the front counseling room, the young woman is asking, ‘Is it a baby?’ And she’s being told, ‘No.’ But in the back, every single baby, as early as it can be done, has to be put back together---arms, legs, hands, feet, the head, and the spine---to be sure it’s all there. It is a baby." She said the turnover in personnel for that particular assignment was high. But it has to be done---anything left inside the womb could cause an infection.
        Carol said that staff-wise, every employee of an abortion clinic has to somehow deal with the grisly reality of their line of work. Some cope through alcohol. Some by overeating. Some use drugs. Some use macabre humor---like the clinic worker who saw an eye of an aborted baby floating by in the plastic, see-through suction pipe and said, "Here’s looking at you, kid!"
        Part of what makes the abortion ethic so bad is that it converts physicians and nurses from healers to killers. Dr. William J. Brennan, professor at St. Louis University, points out just how scary this shift is: "The perversion of medicine in the service of killing is accompanied by a redefinition of barbaric acts as valid medical procedures. An astounding bit of alchemy sets in whereby the physician healer not only becomes a killer, but in the process of this most radical of transformations, destruction loses its most repulsive features and becomes incorporated into the fabric of respectable medical practice."
        The medical personnel in the Philadelphia House of Horrors had everyday reminders of their ghastly business. Perhaps, these repulsive features became so commonplace to them that the personnel became numb to how horrific the whole facility had become.
        Meanwhile, critics note that because of the pro-choice mentality that has permeated so much of the state’s politics, the clinic was able to operate so horrifically because it was essentially under the radar.
        Although former governor Ed Rendell is a staunch advocate of abortion rights, he said after these revelations, "I was flabbergasted to learn that the Department of Health did not think their authority to protect public health extended to clinics offering abortion services." Now he tells us.
        And now that indictments have come down from a grand jury, the 69-year-old Dr. Grosnell is in trouble.
        So what’s the dirty little secret about abortion in general found in this clinic in particular? The secret is that the Philadelphia facility blows the lid on the industry as a whole. The difference between the Philadelphia House of Horrors and normal abortion clinics is only a matter of degree.
        What is the difference between killing a baby five minutes after she is outside the womb versus killing her while she’s in the womb?
        Five minutes.

Note: there is forgiveness through Christ for those that seek it---including those who have had an abortion, encouraged others to have one, or even have been associated with performing them. Anyone needing help, including those considering having an abortion, should know there’s a network of people who care, standing by waiting to help provide a loving alternative. 1-800-BETHANY.