On March 1, 2026, abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell died. In 2011, Gosnell, his wife, Pearl and eight abortion clinic employees were charged with a total of 32 felonies and 227 misdemeanors for crimes related to their abortion practices.

He was sued 46 times, and his victims included two women who died in botched abortions, as well as dozens of women who were injured (not to mention a reported 16,000 babies killed in — and who knows how many outside — the womb).

In May 2013, Gosnell was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of three infants who were killed after being born alive, and involuntary manslaughter in the death of adult patient, Karnamaya Mongar, who died following an abortion procedure.

In 1972, Gosnell seems like an average Philadelphia doctor, but by the end of his life he represented everything that was abhorrent in the abortion industry. Greed eventually displaced any sense of ethics as Gosnell’s clinics engaged in financial fraud, infanticide, hiring unlicensed personnel, illegal medication distribution, and completely unsanitary conditions – all to make up to $10,000-15,000 a day in his baby-killing mill.

After the death of Mongar, the police raided the facility in February of 2010 and found unspeakable horrors. They found baby body parts in plastic bags, cat feces (from a flea-infested cat) on the stairs, urine stench, blood-soaked blankets, couches and recliners, unsterile instruments, uninspected, rusty and outdated equipment, dusty oxygen masks and much more.

I will spare you more gruesome details, but suffice it to say, the expose of Dr. Gosnell pulled back the curtain on the unethical and immoral practices of many in the abortion industry. Many people realized for the first time that abortionists were concerned neither about women nor health, but money.

Unrepentant

Gosnell refused to speak at his own trial, or to offer an apology, leading his own wife to declare him to be a “coward.” One juror, observing Gosnell’s behavior in court, commented:

“He just sat there for the past eight weeks smirking.”

In an exclusive interview, Philadelphia reporter, Steve Volk wrote that Gosnell viewed himself as having “spiritual innocence,” and said of himself:

“I feel comfortable with the things I did and the decisions I made.”

Filmmaker Ann McelHinney said of her interviews with Gosnell in prison:

“He has absolutely no remorse for his actions. In fact, if anything he’s a martyr. He considers himself a martyr. He speaks of himself in extraordinary lofty terms.”

In prison she said Gosnell was “cheerful, continuously smiling,” and:

“He has no sense of him being depressed, or unhappy, or down in any way.”

She also said:

“I just feel like in almost all of the questioning that I gave him, he lied continuously…he just doesn’t care.”

Billy Halloway of CBN News said he had a conversation with Gosnell over the phone when he was in prison and Gosnell said he had been reading the Bible and was more convinced than ever that he had done the “right thing” by snipping the spines of unborn (and even born) babies.

The Irony of Civil Justice

One important issue this case highlighted is the philosophical hypocrisy embedded in our modern legal system regarding the sanctity of life.

Gosnell was imprisoned in part because after failing to kill a baby in the womb (where it has no legal protection) he murdered the same babies just seconds later when they were outside the womb. This should make clear to everyone that mere location (a few inches inside or outside the womb) does not determine personhood.

Mercy Over Justice

After spending nearly 15 years in a Pennsylvania prison, Gosnell was moved beyond this life where he will receive final justice from the Giver of all human life.

While the Bible insists that God’s nature is one of justice (Deut. 32:4), God is also quick to mercy (Ps. 116:5). God has ordained that the civil government bears the sword to punish the evildoer (Rom. 13:4, 1 Pet. 2:14), but He has also given humans an opportunity to be forgiven of their sins (even when civil justice still needs to be carried out).

While there is no evidence that Gosnell ever repented of his crimes and sins before he died, he was not the only person who was involved in that abortion clinic.

In 2012, my own mother, Skeet Savage, spoke for a women’s prison in Pennsylvania where several of Gosnell’s employees were incarcerated because of their complicity in working with Gosnell. One worker who had been sentenced for third-degree murder for being present when Gosnell killed a 29-week old baby outside the womb, was especially impacted by my mother’s message.

She wept as my mother prayed with her and share with her the forgiveness and love offered by Jesus Christ. After serving her time, today she works in pro-life ministry, and nouthetic Biblical counseling, and tells others about how God has freed her and given her new hope and life through Christ.

Justice is important. But mercy is greater than justice.

As Christians, we should never see anyone as irredeemable.

Even Gosnell could have been made right with God through Jesus Christ if he had humbled himself. Let’s continue to pray for the many abortion workers who blinded and calloused to their sins.

May many more find true forgiveness and freedom by coming to know the Giver of Life.