PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) — On All Souls’ Day Nov. 2, several Catholics gathered at a Philadelphia cemetery to mourn preborn children killed by notorious abortionist Kermit Gosnell.
“We’re here today to remember those babies, the victims of Dr. Gosnell, that they are not forgotten,” Auxiliary Bishop Joseph L. Coffey of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, told OSV News.
The archbishop, ordained as a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was on hand for a Nov. 2 memorial Mass and subsequent graveside prayer service for 47 babies found in Gosnell’s West Philadelphia clinic in 2010.
For retired Detective James Wood, who had discovered the babies’ bodies stored in a freezer at Gosnell’s facility, the occasion — his first visit to the grave — was both “special” and “surreal.”
“When we discovered the babies, at first I just felt, ‘I can’t believe this is normalized,’” Wood said. “I could only imagine the thousands of babies that he had killed and disposed of this way.”
A wreath of 47 roses for Gosnell victims
After the late morning liturgy at St. Bridget Church in Philadelphia, participants drove in procession to the city’s historic Laurel Hill East Cemetery, laying 47 roses in a wreath-like circle on the unmarked grave where the children are buried.
The commemoration was among several held nationwide in recent weeks to mark the National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children. Officially observed this year on Sept. 12, the date of local gatherings can be adjusted to accommodate participants’ schedules, particularly those of clergy, said Laura Gies, a Philadelphia-area pro-life advocate who organized the Nov. 2 event.
Gies said this year’s commemoration was at least her fifth, continuing the efforts of earlier memorial organizers.
Kneeling on the grass at the gravesite, Gies sang “Isaiah 49,” a hymn by Carey Landry and Carol Jean Kinghorn-Landry, the chorus of which quotes Is 49:15: “I will never forget you.”
The group held a moment of silence, with prayers offered for the children, their families and women who have had abortions.
A ‘baby charnel house’
Participants also prayed for the soul of Gosnell, who died March 1 at age 85 in a Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, correctional facility, while serving multiple sentences for first-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and drug charges.
For decades, Gosnell had operated what a grand jury report later called a “baby charnel house,” performing late-term abortions amid medical and animal waste for a steady stream of low-income clients, most of them Black or Asian.
Gosnell would often complete the abortions by severing babies’ spinal cords with scissors, a practice he described as “snipping” to “ensure fetal demise.” Often failing to pay for authorized disposal, he stored partial and intact infant remains throughout the facility.
In 2010, Wood — then part of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s narcotics investigations unit — began tracking a pill mill that Gosnell was operating out of his Women’s Medical Center in the city’s western section. Wood and his team closed in, and unwittingly stumbled upon what a grand jury report called a “baby charnel house” operated by Gosnell.
Father Rayford Emmons, a retired Philadelphia priest who celebrated the Nov. 2 Mass for the 47 babies, said he had prayed in front of Gosnell’s clinic while it was still open — when, as Bishop Coffey noted, the late abortionist’s practice was largely “under the radar” in terms of public awareness.
After authorities exposed Gosnell’s crimes — which included the death of 41-year-old Bhutan refugee Karnamaya Mongar, who received a fatal dose of Demerol at the clinic — the scale of the horrors “didn’t really surprise anybody,” since pro-life groups had long drawn attention to the facility, said Father Emmons.
“Our question was, ‘How many other places were doing exactly the same thing?’” he said.
Angels of change
Wood said that “seeing Karnamaya Mongar’s baby through that plastic bag” during the 2010 raid on the Gosnell’s clinic “hit my heart.”
“I could only imagine the thousands of babies that he had killed and disposed of this way,” said Wood.
In May 2013, Gosnell was found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of three babies, involuntary manslaughter in Mongar’s death, and 229 violations of Pennsylvania abortion regulations.
Following Gosnell’s 2013 convictions on those charges, the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office interred the aborted babies’ remains at Laurel Hill.
Sixteen years after discovering their bodies, Wood — who throughout his law enforcement career has drawn on his deeply held Catholic faith — reflected on what he would tell the deceased children.
“I would say, ‘I’m sorry for what happened to you. I wish your parents would have made a different decision,’” Wood said.
And, he added, “I would tell them, ‘You can come and help us as angels to change things in this world that we live in today.’”
Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.
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