Did Pennsylvania Democrat Allyson Schwartz Send Women to Gosnell's House of Horrors?

By Michael Warren


Located in downtown Philadelphia, the Blackwell Center is on Chestnut Street, a stone’s throw away from Reading Terminal Market and Philly’s iconic city hall. It’s also less than three miles over the Schuylkill River from what was once the Women’s Medical Society, the “house of horrors” clinic in West Philadelphia run by Gosnell.

Gosnell, of course, is currently on trial in federal court on five counts of murder—one mother and four born-alive infants whom he allegedly killed outside the womb. Investigators believe Gosnell and his staff killed many more infants who were born alive. (Prosecution recently dropped charges against him for the murder of three more infants.) In January 2011, he was arrested following a federal raid on his clinic in February 2010. The investigation into Gosnell’s clinic has revealed the gruesome conditions under which he and his staff worked.

With the case getting national attention, and with the congresswoman’s political profile rapidly rising, some in Philadelphia’s pro-life community have begun to wonder about Schwartz’s own relationship with Gosnell’s longtime Philly practice. Did the Blackwell Center refer late-term patients to Gosnell while Schwartz was its director? Both Schwartz’s congressional office and her gubernatorial campaign have so far failed to answer requests for on-the-record answers to these questions.

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 Michael Warren is a reporter at The Weekly Standard. He is 2012 Robert Novak journalism fellow, and he has written for the Washington Times, National Review Online, and the Washington Examiner. He has also appeared on CNN and C-SPAN.