A disgraced Philadelphia abortion doctor’s wife has admitted performing an illegal abortion at a filthy clinic that authorities have described as a "house of horrors."
According to the District Attorney’s office, Pearl Gosnell pleaded guilty Tuesday to performing one abortion after 24 weeks, conspiring to perform another and corrupt organization, AP reports.
Gosnell, 50, is the spouse of Kermit Gosnell, who is charged in the deaths of seven babies and a woman who died of a painkiller overdose.
According to the grand jury report released last January, Pearl worked at Gosnell’s Women’s Medical Society as a full-time medical assistant from 1982 until she married him in 1990, reports NBC.
Following their marriage, she assisted her husband on Sundays, when the clinic was normally closed, to perform extremely late-term abortions, the grand jury reported.
Pearl testified to jurors that she alone assisted on Sundays, and that her role was to “help do the instruments” in the procedure room and to monitor patients in the recovery room, NBC reports.
Officials say babies born alive were killed at the west Philadelphia clinic by having their spinal cords severed with scissors.
Pearl Gosnell, who has no medical license, is licensed in cosmetology only. She is scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 15.
In addition to the Gosnells, eight others were also charged in the case. Several have already pleaded guilty, AP reports.
The lawyers in the case have been placed under a gag order.
