PHILADELPHIA — In opening statements in court on Monday, prosecutors charged that a doctor who operated a women's health clinic here killed seven viable fetuses by plunging scissors into their necks and "snipping" their spinal cords and was also responsible for the death of a pregnant woman in his care.
The physician, Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 72, is charged with seven counts of first-degree murder as well as multiple counts of conspiracy, criminal solicitation and violation of a state law that forbids abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy. Dr. Gosnell had operated the Women's Medical Society in West Philadelphia.
More than two years after he was arrested and the clinic was shut down, and 14 months after a grand jury report described the charges against him, Dr. Gosnell appeared in Common Pleas Court on Monday to face a trial that could result in the death penalty if he is found guilty.
His lawyer, Jack J. McMahon, described Dr. Gosnell as dedicated to treating the poor and accused prosecutors of racism — "a prosecutorial lynching" of his client, who is black.
"It's an elitist, racist prosecution," Mr. McMahon said. "This black man is being taken because of who he is and where he works."
One of the prosecutors, Joanne Pescatore, an assistant district attorney, told the court that Dr. Gosnell routinely performed illegal late-term abortions, killing the seven fetuses in operations that would have caused the infants pain.
"If the baby is alive and you don't want it to be, that doesn't mean you have the right to take a pair of scissors and plunge it into the baby's neck," Ms. Pescatore told the jury during opening arguments of a trial that is expected to continue for four to six weeks.
She also accused Dr. Gosnell of falsifying clinic records to show that no abortions had been performed beyond the legal limit of 24.5 weeks of pregnancy, and of storing fetal remains throughout the clinic, including 20 to 30 jars containing only their feet.
"Disturbing: that's an understatement," Ms. Pescatore said as Dr. Gosnell, wearing a dark suit and taking notes on a yellow legal pad, listened from the defense table. "Was he keeping trophies for what he had done?"
Prosecutors have also accused nine of Dr. Gosnell's staff members with violating abortion laws, perjury and other charges. All but one — including the doctor's wife, Pearl Gosnell — have pleaded guilty.
Ms. Pescatore said that Dr. Gosnell had performed many abortions in unsafe and unsanitary conditions, including using unqualified assistants. She said that as a result of financial motivations, the clinic had taken in many women who were beyond the legal abortion limit in their pregnancy.
"If they were far along, that didn't matter," Ms. Pescatore said. "They made more money for him."
Among the patients was Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old Bhutanese woman with three children, who had gone to Dr. Gosnell seeking an abortion in her 19th week of pregnancy, four months after arriving in the United States from a refugee camp in Nepal.
Dr. Gosnell's staff gave Ms. Mongar a painkilling drug during her labor, Ms. Pescatore said, but the patient reacted badly and died after being taken to a nearby hospital. The prosecutor blamed the doctor for the death.
Mr. McMahon said the prosecution was trying to manipulate the jury's emotions by leveling charges that he said would not be supported by the facts during the trial.
The defense lawyer said that there was scientific evidence on the viability of only two of the seven fetuses Dr. Gosnell is accused of killing, and that claims that the other five were viable were based on verbal reports by clinic staff members that the fetuses had been moving after they were aborted.
In fact, neither of the two fetuses was born alive, Mr. McMahon said. He promised jurors that assertion would be confirmed by the mother of "Baby A," who is to testify during the trial. As for "Baby B," he said, post-mortem tests on its lungs showed that they were never aerated, indicating that the child was born dead.
Rebutting prosecution claims that Dr. Gosnell was profiting from the desperation of poor women, Mr. McMahon said his client had passed up lucrative positions in obstetrics and gynecology so that he could provide an essential service in West Philadelphia, where he performed more than 16,000 abortions over 31 years.
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