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Talk:Kermit Gosnell

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Victim count

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DocZach: This article says he was convicted of three counts of first degree murder and one of involuntary manslaughter, making four victims in total. There may have been more, but we have no proof of this and so cannot claim it with certainty. We should report the facts and we may report speculation in so far as it's relevant, but we must not misleadingly change mere speculation into proven fact.

You say that "Ted Bundy was only convicted of three murders, but his victim count is 20", but that's a very different case, because he confessed even more than those and in 20 of those cases his responsibility could be proven by independent reliable sources – the victims are all listed in his article, with names and circumstances of their murder.

That's not the case in this case where there were additional, but lesser crimes (such as 21 illegal late-term abortions), and others suspected, but not proven. Gawaon (talk) 08:59, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See Nathaniel Code, Doug Clark, and Dorothea Puente for other examples of how Wikipedia does not limit the victim field only to those a killer has been convicted of. The victim field is at 48+ because the Grand Jury Report and reliable sources reference the 47 human remains being found at the clinic, with an addition of 1 woman who was killed during an abortion procedure.
The Grand Jury Report actually states on page 247,
Gosnell, we are convinced, committed hundreds of acts of infanticide. He got away with them for decades because they all took place inside his clinic. We are disappointed that we can charge him for only the babies he let die in the past two years. (emphasis added) [1]
Additionally, the Grand Jury Report states on page 225,
We recommend a murder charge against Kermit Gosnell in the death of “Baby Boy B,” whose frozen remains were discovered during the February 2010 raid. The search team discovered red biohazard bags containing the remains of 47 fetuses, which were turned over to the Philadelphia medical examiner. (emphasis added) [2]
Gosnell's staff member admitted to committing hundreds of acts of homicide on born-alive infants following failed abortion procedures. The Grand Jury Report states on page 5,
Over the years, there were hundreds of “snippings.” Sometimes, if Gosnell was unavailable, the “snipping” was done by one of his fake doctors, or even by one of the administrative staff. But all the employees of the Women’s Medical Society knew. Everyone there acted as if it wasn’t murder at all. Most of these acts cannot be prosecuted, because Gosnell destroyed the files. (emphasis added) [3]
Reliable sources mention this figure. To name and quote a few,
If anything, it may be more reasonable to even implement the 100+ figure in the victim field due to the admissions of Gosnell's staff and the findings in the Grand Jury Report. However, the number has long been 48 due to the fact that those are the number of physical remains found. Let me know if you have any questions. DocZach (talk) 09:23, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Oh come on, you should really know better than that. "Hundreds of acts of infanticide" are suspected, no doubt, but not proven, so we cannot magically turn them into proven victims. The "remains of 47 aborted fetuses" were found in the clinic, but (a) this doesn't confirm 47 crimes, since abortion is (or was) legal in many cases and (b) even in so far as a crime was committed, we don't know whether it was committed by Gosnell personally or by somebody else – even the sources you cite say that other people were involved too. The article List of serial killers by number of victims says that Steven Massof "pleaded guilty to two counts of third-degree murder during his time working at Kermit Gosnell's abortion clinic". So that's two other confirmed murders, but committed by Massof, not by Gosnell. Gosnell may be held morally responsible as owner of the clinic, but we cannot count these victims as his personal victims too without leading to absurd double counting.
If the article did not comply with Wikipedia's standards for reliably for a long time that is, of course, not at all a reason against changing it now to fix that issue. "Other things exist" is also not a valid argument. I'm not quite sure why Nathaniel Code says eight or more victims when he was actually convicted of four, but that may be an issue for that article's talk page – it's not an argument for allowing this article to misrepresent the facts. The jury in this case did look at the evidence and found Gosnell guilty of only three cases of murder, not of 47. We cannot claim anything more, so unless there are other convictions we have overlooked or other similarly reliable evidence demonstrating his personal guilt, the article will have to be changed. Gawaon (talk) 10:03, 22 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that we should be careful not to imply certainty where none exists. The article already makes it clear that Gosnell was only convicted of three infant murders and one involuntary manslaughter, and nothing in my argument suggests changing or obscuring that. This is not about inflating or speculating, it’s about whether the infobox should follow the same standard used in other comparable articles. On Wikipedia, the victims field does not represent only legal convictions. It reflects the number of documented human remains or reliably attributed victims, with the “+” symbol indicating uncertainty rather than fact. This isn’t unique to this case: as I stated above, it is the case with Dorothea Puente (3 convictions but 9 bodies found), Nathaniel Code (4 convictions but 8 victims listed), Doug Clark (6 convictions but 7–25 victims listed), and Ted Bundy (only 3 legal convictions but the infobox reflects the widely documented victim count based on physical evidence and verified sourcing). So keeeping Gosnell’s entry consistent is simply applying the same formatting and logic we already use.
In this case, the number 48 is not speculation as you appear to suggest. It is the number of physically recovered human remains documented during the investigation. Multiple independent, mainstream reliable sources (CNN, USA Today, The Independent, etc.) report that authorities recovered 47 human remains stored in Gosnell’s clinic, and when you add Mongar, the adult patient who died there, you get 48 documented victims connected to his medical practice. That number also aligns with the Grand Jury Report, which noted the remains and went further... stating that they believed there had been “hundreds” of similar cases but could not prosecute most due to destroyed records. DocZach (talk) 03:57, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But human remains aren't necessarily "victims", let alone of a specific person. To resolve this, let's try a simple analogy: four corpses are discovered in a basement belonging to XY. A criminal investigation and trial follow and the result is that XY is convicted of one murder. (In the other cases, the evidence is either insufficient for a conviction and in one case forensics is unable to even determine whether the person died of natural causes or was killed; in another case, it turns out the person was indeed murdered, but by somebody else, who is legally convicted for the crime.) How should we report this: (a) "XY killed one or possibly more persons" (i.e.: 1+ victims) or (b) "XY killed four persons" (i.e.: 4 victims)? What's your choice? Gawaon (talk) 08:40, 23 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I understand your analogy, but that’s not really how Wikipedia treats cases like this. The infobox doesn’t say “Gosnell was convicted for the murder of 48 people.” The victim field isn't meant to reflect only convictions. For example, many articles exist on serial-killers who died before a trial could even start, but we don't negate or ignore the amount of victims they had for the infobox. The infobox summarizes the scope of the case as documented by reliable sources, while the article text explains what was proven in court versus what is attributed. That’s the same approach used for the killers I previously mentioned, including Dorothea Puente, Doug Clark, Nathaniel Code, and Ted Bundy — all of their infobox victim counts reflect documented bodies or widely sourced numbers, not just legal convictions.
With Gosnell, the number 48 isn’t speculation. Law enforcement literally found, documented, and investigated the human remains of 47 fetuses and infants in his clinic. Major outlets like CNN, USA Today, and The Independent consistently frame the case around that number, one of them referring to the "47 bodies from abortion provider Kermit Gosnell's case." When you include Karnamaya Mongar, you reach 48.
If we listed only “4,” we’d be implying the other 44 recovered bodies are irrelevant or unconnected, even though reliable sources clearly describe them as part of the case. “48+” reflects the scale of what was found, while the body of the article already explains exactly what was legally proven. That keeps us neutral, accurate, and consistent with how we treat similar cases across Wikipedia.
I am willing to compromise, however. We could put a note next to the victim count (like a footnote) and clarify further. I will actually implement that now, and you can let me know what you think. DocZach (talk) 03:02, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, this won't do, and it's not a matter that we or another group of editors can decide on the basis of our personal preferences, since WP:LOCALCON cannot overwrite wiki-wide general rules. This article is not comparable to any of the others you mention since there's simply no RS stating, as something that's proven and not mere speculation, that Gosnell had 48 or more victims. The mentions of 47 aborted fetuses (not bodies) would be relevant only if the sources said that they had all been murdered by Gosnell personally. None of them makes such a statement, however, and so we can't cite them claiming that they did. Neither can we conjure the statement out of thin air. What you're trying to do is OR, which is generally not allowed, and moreover it is very bad OR since we know that other people were involved and at least one other was also convicted of murder, so it's in fact quite unlikely that all these fetuses were murdered by Gosnell personally (even assuming that there was proof that they were all murdered, which is not the case).
We are in BLP territory here, and you should know, per the note on top of this page that "Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous." Hence I must ask you to find, within 24 hours, a reliable source that positively and explicitly states that Gosnell murdered or illegally killed no less than 48 persons, or else to remove that unsourced claim from the article (replacing it with the undisputed minimum of 4+ victims).
I can also fix the improperly sourced claim myself after that period, in which case I will of course expect to not be reverted. Otherwise I would have to get the BLP Noticeboard involved, but I would prefer not having to do that. Gawaon (talk) 08:32, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm reluctant to wade into this, but, there's nothing BLP violative in setting the victims field to: "possibly hundreds, under his care", cited to the grand jury report - notwithstanding the grey area of a grand jury report being a primary source. But presenting it as "possible" doesn't confer a direct claim of guilt, and it's a priori that it was 'under his care', as it was his clinic in which all of it took place.
But - that's just my two cents. Do with it what you will, I've no interest in getting embroiled in a topic as contentious as this. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 09:06, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Reporting the speculation in this case should be acceptable, as long as it's properly sourced and marked as speculation ("possibly"). But of course the infobox is for the proven facts as well, which in this case means the number of convictions. So we would write "4 to possibly hundreds", explaining the details in a note (4 proven per convictions, hundreds possible per Grand Jury assumption). Would that work for you too, @DocZach:? Gawaon (talk) 12:51, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
4 murder convictions; hundreds suspected
or
4 (murder convictions) to possibly hundreds
I would be fine with either of these, as long as the note mentions the 47 bodies found in his clinic. I think the note should state the following:

Gosnell was convicted of four murders (three infants and one adult). Investigators recovered 47 fetal and infant remains from his clinic, most of them being viable. The Grand Jury Report and staff testimony suggest the true number of victims born alive and subsequently killed by Gosnell may reach into the hundreds, though most cases could not be proven due to missing or destroyed records and limited physical evidence.

DocZach (talk) 20:45, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I think putting this would be better for the victim field:
Convicted of 4; suspected of hundreds DocZach (talk) 20:52, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'll just use what you suggested. 4 to possibly hundreds
I have adjusted the lists and the note. DocZach (talk) 01:03, 25 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I quite literally already provided you a source that does indeed attribute 47 bodies to Kermit Gosnell. You say "fetuses (not bodies)", yet one of the sources below explicitly states "'bodies."
[C]ity officials in Philadelphia plan to cremate and bury the 47 bodies from abortion provider Kermit Gosnell's case. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/06/14/kermit-gosnell-trial-babies-cremation/2424491/
Defense lawyer Jack McMahon, in his closing argument on Monday, cited testimony by Medical Examiner Sam Gulino, who said none of the 47 babies tested randomly from the West Philadelphia clinic had been born alive. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jury-deliberations-begin-philadelphia-doctor-murder-trial-flna6c9691000
I suggest that we amend the victim field as follows:
48+ (only convicted of 4) DocZach (talk) 10:04, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No. None of these sources says that he personally murdered them, only that they were somehow connected with his case. And the latter statement (none of them had been born alive) rather indicates that none of them had been murdered, suggesting the opposite of what you would have to prove. Gawaon (talk) 12:28, 24 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Semi-protected edit request on 1 January 2026

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I am writing to discuss a potentially false statement made in the article on “Kermit Gosnell” in the “Education and Early Career” section. Within this section, details about a specific medical procedure, the “super coil” method of abortion, practiced by Gosnell is described as follows: “The device, an untested plastic ball with razor blades, was inserted into the mother's uterus to chop up and expel the fetus.”, followed by a citation to an article from USA Today. This description seemed fairly morbid and unrealistic, which spurred further investigation.

The USA Today article, which makes use of sensationalist language, does not cite any source corroborating this description. I have not found any source describing the procedure as such. I have, however, found many sources describing the procedure similar to this line: “This method utilizes a plastic strip 40 cm long and 4.6 mm wide, wound into a spiral 2 cm in diameter. The coil is straightened and put in an inserter through which it is introduced via the cervical os into the uterus. The method calls for insertion of several coils, and balsa tents may also be placed in the cervical canal. The coils are removed 12-24 hours after insertion, and if the uterine contents are not totally expelled spontaneously, ovum forceps are used to remove them.” (Bourne JP, Berger GS, Haber RJ, Tyler CW Jr, Keith L, Knisely K, Zackler J. Medical complications from induced abortion by the super coil method. Health Serv Rep. 1974 Jan-Feb;89(1):40-2. PMID: 4815040; PMCID: PMC1616242.).

Nowhere in any reputable, scholarly source are razors or the “chopping up” of a fetus mentioned. I am requesting that the information in this section of the article be removed, substantiated by a higher-quality citation, or changed to better represent the nature of the procedure. Aguamieles (talk) 20:27, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The "razor blade" addition is rather recent, changed in this diff: [1]. Since the sources you provided are already already cited in the article and contradict the "razor blade" theory, and were there before the razor blade addition, I'm reverting the wording to what it was previously. Keeping this ER open for now in case people think it needs more work. — Rtrb (talk) (contribs) 21:08, 1 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Mark as done per User:Rtrb meamemg (talk) 16:17, 2 January 2026 (UTC)[reply]
  1. ^ Grand Jury Report of Kermit Gosnell, pg. 247 https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2015/15-274/15-274-1.pdf
  2. ^ Grand Jury Report of Kermit Gosnell, pg. 225 https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2015/15-274/15-274-1.pdf
  3. ^ Grand Jury Report of Kermit Gosnell, pg. 5 https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2015/15-274/15-274-1.pdf