HR0406 98TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

HR0406 LRB098 12258 RLC 46426 r

HOUSE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, On May 13, 2013, a jury in a Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas convicted abortion provider Kermit Gosnell of 3 counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of infants born alive following attempted abortions and one count of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Karnamaya Mongar, a patient who sought an abortion at Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic, the Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia; and

WHEREAS, On May 13, 2013, a jury in a Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas also convicted Kermit Gosnell of 21 counts of performing illegal late-term abortions and 210 counts of violating Pennsylvania's Abortion Control Act which, among other requirements, mandates a 24-hour reflection period before an abortion may be performed; and

WHEREAS, The report of the Grand Jury in the Court of Common Pleas, First Judicial District of Pennsylvania, Criminal Trial Division, certified on January 14, 2011, begins, "This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy-and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels-and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths."; and

WHEREAS, The report of the Grand Jury detailed findings of dangerous and unsanitary conditions in the Women's Medical Society: "The clinic reeked of animal urine, courtesy of the cats that were allowed to roam (and defecate) freely. Furniture and blankets were stained with blood. Instruments were not properly sterilized. Disposable medical supplies were not disposed of; they were reused, over and over again. Medical equipment-such as the defibrillator, the EKG, the pulse oximeter, the blood pressure cuff-was generally broken; even when it worked, it wasn't used. The emergency exit was padlocked shut. And scattered throughout, in cabinets, in the basement, in a freezer, in jars and bags and plastic jugs, were fetal remains. It was a baby charnel house."; and

WHEREAS, The report of the Grand Jury described an "inexcusable" and "complete regulatory collapse" by the Pennsylvania Department of Health in inspecting, investigating, and appropriately sanctioning Kermit Gosnell and the Women's Medical Society; specifically, officials with the Pennsylvania Department of Health failed to perform routine inspections of the Women's Medical Society, refusing to inspect the clinic for years and even decades at a time, and failed to investigate specific and credible complaints against Kermit Gosnell and the Women's Medical Society; and

WHEREAS, The report of the Grand Jury detailed repeated complaints to the Pennsylvania Department of Health involving Kermit Gosnell and the Women's Medical Society: "Several different attorneys, representing women injured by Gosnell, contacted the Department. A doctor from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia hand-delivered a complaint, advising the Department that numerous patients he had referred for abortions came back from Gosnell with the same venereal disease. The medical examiner of Delaware County informed the Department that Gosnell had performed an illegal abortion on a 14-year-old girl carrying a 30-week-old baby. And the Department received official notice that a woman named Karnamaya Mongar had died at Gosnell's hands. Yet not one of these alarm bells-not even Mrs. Mongar's death-prompted the Department to look at Gosnell or the Women's Medical Society"; and

WHEREAS, The problem of dangerous and substandard conditions and practices at abortion clinics is not confined to Pennsylvania but extends to other states around the nation including Illinois; and

WHEREAS, In January 2012, the Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune reported that "(a)n increased scrutiny of Illinois abortion clinics in the wake of revelations about a 'house of horrors' in Philadelphia revealed that some facilities had gone up to 15 years without inspections, and two now have closed after regulators found health and safety violations. The renewed oversight by state regulators led to the permanent closure of a clinic in Rockford (in January 2012), following the closing of a clinic in suburban Chicago (in October 2011), according to documents obtained by The Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act request"; and

WHEREAS, On July 20, 2012, Tonya Reaves, a 24-year-old mother of a one-year old son, entered an abortion clinic at 18 S. Michigan Avenue in Chicago; she was 16-weeks pregnant and, at 11 am that that morning, she underwent a dilation and evacuation ("D&E") abortion, an abortion procedure often performed in the second trimester which involves significantly more risk to the woman than earlier term abortions; while in recovery, Ms. Reaves suffered significant bleeding and, more than 5 hours after her abortion, she was finally rushed by ambulance to Northwestern Memorial Hospital; at Northwestern, doctors performed an ultrasound and discovered an incomplete abortion; in response, they performed a second ("D&E") procedure; however, Ms. Reaves continued to suffer pain and other complications; a second ultrasound was then performed and doctors learned that Ms. Reaves had suffered a "perforation"; she was taken into surgery where "an uncontrollable bleed" was discovered; an emergency hysterectomy was performed, but Ms. Reaves died at 11:20 pm; and

WHEREAS, An autopsy report released in early September 2012 confirmed that Ms. Reaves suffered from an incomplete abortion and that pieces of placenta were still attached to the inside of her uterus even after the second D&E procedure was performed at Northwestern; had a 3/16 inch perforation in her uterus near impression marks that appeared to have been made by forceps, instruments typically used during a D&E abortion; suffered an "extensive" perforation of her broad uterine ligament with the possible severing of her left uterine artery; and had one to one-and-a-half liters of blood and blood clots inside her abdominal cavity indicating that Ms. Reaves had bled about 30 percent of her total volume of blood into her abdomen following her abortion at the Michigan Avenue abortion clinic; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE NINETY-EIGHTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that the Illinois House of Representatives extends its condolences to the families of the victims of Kermit Gosnell and to the family of Tonya Reaves; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the Illinois House of Representatives condemns the criminal actions of Kermit Gosnell, the dangerous and substandard conditions at the Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia, and the inexcusable dereliction of duty by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and other state officials in failing to properly inspect, investigate, and sanction Kermit Gosnell and the Women's Medical Society and to appropriately inspect other abortion clinics in the State of Pennsylvania; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the Illinois House of Representatives urges the Illinois Department of Public Health to pursue a regime of regular inspections of Illinois "pregnancy termination specialty centers" (abortion clinics) to ensure compliance with Illinois law governing those centers or clinics, specifically 77 Ill. Adm. Code 205.710 (2013), to ensure that centers or clinics failing to meet legally required and medically appropriate standards for patient care are either closed or comply, within an agreed upon time, with an approved plan to correct deficiencies, and to properly respond to and investigate complaints and other credible allegations it receives concerning conditions and conduct at these centers or clinics; and be it further

RESOLVED, That the Illinois House of Representatives urges the Illinois Department of Public Health to ensure that the provisions and intent of 1 U.S.C. 8 and Illinois' complementary statute, 5 ILCS 70/1.36 (2013), are properly enforced and respected and that "pregnancy termination specialty centers" (abortion clinics) are complying with these laws.