Joseph A. Slobodzian, Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted: Friday, April 12, 2013, 6:41 AMAt the time, it must have seemed like the ultimate work-study program.
Ashley Baldwin, a 15-year-old sophomore at University City High School who was thinking of becoming a doctor, got a job at one of the busiest clinics in West Philadelphia.
She was paid, and in no time went from answering phones to doing ultrasounds, administering intravenous medicine, and, ultimately, assisting in abortions performed by her mentor, Kermit Gosnell.
Now 22 and the mother of a 2-year-old son, Baldwin on Thursday told a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury hearing Gosnell's murder trial of her unusual hands-on medical apprenticeship.
Baldwin also told the jury about seeing at least five aborted babies moving, breathing, and, in one case, "screeching" after late-term procedures at the clinic at 3801 Lancaster Ave.
In Pennsylvania, abortions are legal up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. After that, medical experts say, a fetus is capable of living outside the womb.
"They looked just like regular babies," Baldwin said.
Baldwin said one baby was so big that Gosnell joked that "this baby is going to walk me home."
She said the joke bothered her and she talked to her mother about it. Baldwin's mother, however, was also a Gosnell employee. Tina Baldwin had worked there since 2001.
Ashley Baldwin said she assisted Gosnell in abortions, applying pressure to the mother's abdomen, handing the doctor instruments and equipment.
She said she also saw Gosnell use scissors to "snip" the neck of newborns who were moving after the procedure.
Although she sometimes felt uneasy about what she saw, Baldwin said, Gosnell always had an explanation: "He told me that's how it was supposed to go."
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