From NBC Philadelphia

A West Philadelphia abortion doctor has been charged with the death of a female patient and the murder of seven babies whose spinal cords were severed with scissors after they were born alive, says District Attorney Seth Williams.

Dr. Kermit B. Gosnell, 69, is being charged with third degree murder for the death of 41-year-old Karnamaya Mongar who allegedly overdosed on anesthetics prescribed by Gosnell.

The abortion doctor also faces murder charges for the deaths of seven babies who were killed with scissors after being born “viable and alive” during the sixth, seventh and eighth month of pregnancy, according to a press release from the District Attorney’s office Wednesday.

“I am aware that abortion is a hot-button topic,” said Williams. “But as District Attorney, my job is to carry out the law. A doctor who knowingly and systematically mistreats female patients, to the point that one of them dies in his so-called care, commits murder under the law. A doctor who cuts into the necks severing the spinal cords of living, breathing babies, who would survive with proper medical attention, is committing murder under the law.”

The investigation began February 2010 when police received tips that Gosnell was illegally selling thousands of oxycontin prescriptions to “patients” he had never examined.

After two patients allegedly died from complications in Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society at 38th Street and Lancaster Avenue, authorities served the abortion doctor with search warrants for his practice and his home in Mantua last April.

In the clinic, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents found abhorrent conditions, which included jars packed with severed baby feet lining the shelves; bags and bottles of aborted fetuses scattered throughout the office; bloodstained furniture and floors; and unlicensed employees who regularly injected sedatives into women having illegal, late-term abortions, according to Williams.

Continued at NBC Philadelphia