off fetus' necks with his bare hands' is investigated in Texas
Houston doctor Douglas Karpen is accused by four former employees of
delivering live babies during third-trimester abortions and killing
them
Witnesses said he would either snip their spinal cords, stab a
surgical instrument into their heads or twist their heads off with his
hands
Texas Department of State Health Services is using in its
investigating of the doctor
Accusations come days after Dr Kermit Gosnells was found guilty of
murdering newborns at his Philadelphia abortion clinic
By HELEN POW
A second 'house of horrors' abortion clinic is being investigated in
Texas, just days after Dr Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of murdering
newborns at his Philadelphia termination center.
Dr. Douglas Karpen, seen here in court, is accused of killing babies
aborted in their third trimester
Houston doctor Douglas Karpen is accused by four former employees of
delivering live fetuses during third-trimester abortions and killing
them by either snipping their spinal cord, stabbing a surgical
instrument into their heads or 'twisting their heads off their necks
with his own bare hands'.
Other times the fetus was so big he would have to pull it out of the
womb in pieces, Karpen's ex-assistant, Deborah Edge, said in an
Operation Rescue video, which has prompted a criminal investigation
into the doctor.
'Sometimes he couldn't get the fetus out... he would yank pieces –
piece by piece – when they were oversize,' Edge explained.
'And I'm talking about the whole floor dirty. I'm talking about me
drenched in blood.'
Two of Edge's colleagues, Gigi Aguliar, and Krystal Rodriguez, also
described the hellish scenes which took place at the Aaron Women's
Clinic in Houston in 2011, and possibly two other abortion clinics run
by Karpen in Texas.
Another staffer, who remains anonymous, filed an affidavit with her
account of events, which the Texas Department of State Health Services
is using in its investigation.
'We have several people looking into the allegations,' Harris County
District Attorney spokesman Sara Marie Kinney told Chron.com.
Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said he had read the allegations 'with
disgust' before calling for a full investigation into Karpen and his
clinics.
Lifenews.com, an anti-abortion news website, has published cell phone
photographs taken by the employees of fetuses with gashes in their
necks after they were killed at the clinic, though these are far too
gruesome for MailOnline to show.
Edge said fetuses were killed well after 24 weeks gestation at the
Houston clinic, which resulted in a sweat-inducing job that took about
an hour per procedure. She said every morning on multiple occasions
she would see fetuses born alive and then quickly killed by the
doctor.
'When he did an abortion, especially an over 20 week abortion, most of
the time the fetus would come completely out before he either cut the
spinal cord or he introduced one of the instruments into the soft spot
of the fetus in order to kill it.... or actually twisting the head off
the neck with his own bare hands,' she explained.
'It was still alive because it was still moving and you could see the
stomach breathing.'
The women described one occasion where a fetus that Karpen thought was
dead suddenly 'opened its eyes and grabbed (the doctor's) finger'
after he wrenched it from the womb. However, it met a similar fate to
the other fetuses at the clinic, the women said.
'He thought it was dead but the fetus actually opened its eyes and
grabbed his finger,' Aguliar said. 'He was alive. He thought it was
deceased already. He was getting ready to put it in the back.'
They also recounted occasions when women were so far along with their
pregnancy they were actually induced into labor and in two cases their
fetus' came out while they were in the bathroom.
Rodriguez described another incident where a patient's fetus fell from
her and onto the floor in the clinic's waiting room.
'(Karpen) just picked it up with a Chux and put it in the trash bag,' she said.
According to Rodriguez, as long as patients had the cash, Karpen would
perform an abortion well past 24 weeks. A late-term procedure cost
between $4,000 and $5,000 at the clinic, they said in the video which
was filmed as the clinic was still operating and released on
Wednesday.
Edge said she regularly got upset during her work and couldn't watch
when Karpen allegedly killed the newborns. But she said she didn't
know that what he was doing was illegal.
'We used to look at each other and sometimes our tears would come out
with the other assistants,' Edge said. 'We would always think "he's so
greedy."'
