Philadelphia - former Governor Ed Rendell, said Friday he was "speechless" when he discovered last year that the State Health Department didn't that its power extended to abortion as Philadelphia clinics where prosecutors say that a physician used scissors to kill viable babies.
Rendell, a Democrat, whose second term of Governor ended last week, said in a statement that he ordered an increase of inspections after a raid of clinic early last year gave horrific accounts of bloody floors and baby parts in jars. Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who led the clinic, was charged with killing seven babies and a woman who went to him for an abortion this week.
"I was flabbergasted to learn that the Health Ministry did not have their power to protect the public health extended to providing services of abortion clinics," Rendell, also a mayor of Philadelphia two terms in the 1990s, said in a statement issued through a spokeswoman.
"When I found this, from the press about the case of Gosnell, I immediately for them to inspect these installations," said Rendell. "It was simply absurd that the Department has adopted this position, never."
An indictment 261-page grand jury published this week against Gosnell and other details of the clinical staff a macabre litany of failures and failure to comply with even the most basic guidelines for public health. It sets out a long list of regulatory failures by the Department of health and other agencies.
In its report, the grand jury, said the Department and other agencies - including the Department of State, whereby the Board of Directors of medicine falls - allowed clinic Gosnell to operate virtually unhindered since the end of the 1970s. He had not been inspected since 1993.
A spokesman for newly installed Governor Tom Corbett, a Republican, said Thursday there are 22 suppliers registered abortions in Pennsylvania, and each of them have been inspected in September and November.
Given that the grand jury report was published on Wednesday, the Health Ministry did not comment and referred inquiries to the Office of Corbett.
The grand jury said political plays a role in monitoring of abortion issues.
In its report, the Commission said the Health Ministry "decided, for political reasons, to stop the inspection of all abortion clinics the."
Counsel for the Department of health has changed their views and advice "according to the political preferences of various Governors", said the report. The Department has dropped its policy of annual inspections in the mid-1990s under Governor Tom Ridge, who supported abortion rights, said the report.
A lawyer from the Ministry of health testified about a meeting of the State of high level officials, 1999 "which has been decided not to accept a recommendation to reinstate regular inspections of the abortion clinics""," citing a concern that the routine inspections would lead to "less the installationsmoins women of abortion access abortion."
Rendell said Thursday that he "had no knowledge that has been the policy of the administration of the Ridge, nor that the policy was being sued." "The Ministry of health never reached me to discuss what policy should be."
Ridge did not comment the report. The Associated Press sought his comment through its representatives.
Gosnell, 69, a family practice physician not certified to perform abortions, was arraigned Thursday on charges of murder of seven babies and a patient. His lawyer declined to comment on.
Authorities allege Gosnell and overloaded his - sometimes untrained - unsanitary equipment of workers used to induce the labor very late-term pregnancies, born viable babies alive and killed with scissors to the spine and the parts of the body left in jars.
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Associated press writers Michael Rubinkam in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and Mark Scolforo Harrisburg, PA., have contributed to this report.
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