Allyson Schwartz Still Silent on if She Referred Women to Kermit Gosnell

Pennsylvania voters still want to know: Did Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Allyson Schwartz, when she ran an abortion business in the state, refer women to Kermit Gosnell’s infamous abortion facility.

Betty Berry of Susquehanna Township is one voter who wants to know, and she wrote a letter to the editor to that effect.

Given the desire of voters for transparency, I am puzzled by the fact that gubernatorial candidate Allyson Schwartz has failed to answer a simple question: As the operator of a facility that performed abortions in Philadelphia, did she ever refer clients to Kermit Gosnell, who was recently convicted of the murder of three newborn babies and of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the death of an adult female immigrant?

Schwartz co-founded and served as the Executive Director of an abortion facility in Philadelphia for 13 years. The facility performed about 1,500 abortions in its final year of operation before declaring bankruptcy.

Other area abortion clinics frequently referred women to Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic for abortions later than they would do. But the gubernatorial hopeful has been silent on whether hers did.

With the case getting national attention, and with the congresswoman’s political profile rapidly rising, some in Philadelphia’s pro-life community have begun to wonder about Schwartz’s own relationship with Gosnell’s longtime Philly practice. Did the Blackwell Center refer late-term patients to Gosnell while Schwartz was its director? Both Schwartz’s congressional office and her gubernatorial campaign have so far failed to answer requests for on-the-record answers to these questions.

At Blackwell, the answers aren’t clear, either. The doctors there don’t perform abortions on site, but they do refer patients to abortion clinics in the area. These days, Blackwell’s policy is to provide no referrals for any patient seeking an abortion past 21 weeks of gestation. The law in Pennsylvania allows for abortions up until 24 weeks, but a Blackwell employee who answered the phone says a woman after 21 weeks would have to travel to New Jersey or Delaware to get an abortion that late. Why?

“No clinics in Pennsylvania will take patients past 21 weeks,” the employee confirmed.

Not anymore, but there was a time when at least one clinic in the Philadelphia area was performing late-term abortions on women who were past 21 weeks of gestation: Gosnell’s. Late-term abortions were his specialty, particularly for poor minority women. If a woman at 23 weeks came to Blackwell looking for an abortion, where would Blackwell refer her to if not Gosnell’s clinic?

A Planned Parenthood official denies that Blackwell ever referred mothers seeking abortions to take the 10-minute drive across town to Gosnell’s clinic, though she did not explain how she knew this.

“We have never referred to Gosnell,” said the official in an email to THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Could she confirm that going all the way back to 1972, the year Gosnell first opened his clinic? The official did not immediately respond.

Allyson Schwartz has a 0 percent rating from the National Right to Life Committee. In her eight years in Congress, she’s taken the pro-abortion position on legislation 34 times.

She voted to allow late-term abortions at and after 20 weeks, the point at which scientific evidence suggests an unborn child can feel intense pain, even though polling commissioned by the National Right to Life Committee found that 63 percent of Americans, and 70 percent of women, support legislation to end post-fetal pain abortions.

She voted against banning abortions if the sole reason is the gender of the baby, even though polling has found that 77 percent of Americans and 80 percent of women support banning sex-selective abortion.

She voted for taxpayer funding of America’s largest abortion business, Planned Parenthood, and for taxpayer funding of abortion in the Affordable Care Act, even though polling routinely shows a strong majority of Americans (72 percent according to Quinnipiac University) oppose the use of taxpayer dollars for abortion in Obamacare.

She voted against protecting underage girls from being taken across state lines by nonparents for abortions — skirting Pennsylvania’s parental involvement laws — even though Gallup polling has found that 71 percent of Americans support parents’ right to give or refuse consent to their minor daughters’ abortions.

I am sure he had a referral fee he paid. My bet is that she needs to ask this question. “ Did you ever receive any compensation of any kind for referring your clients to his clinic?” All you have to do is ask that question, because she will not know if you have copies of checks or other information in hand to follow up with.

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