An abortion doctor convicted of killing three babies who were born alive has agreed to give up his right to an appeal and faces life in prison but will be spared a death sentence.
Dr Kermit Gosnell, 72, was convicted yesterday of first-degree murder in the deaths of the babies who were delivered alive and killed with scissors.
Prosecutors agreed to two life sentences without parole, and Gosnell will to be sentenced tomorrow in the death of the third baby, an involuntary manslaughter conviction in the death of a patient and hundreds of lesser counts.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty. But Gosnell's own advanced age had made it unlikely he would ever be executed before his appeals ran out.
Gosnell has said he considered himself a pioneering inner-city doctor who helped desperate women get late-term abortions.
Defence lawyer Jack McMahon said before the sentencing deal that his client's bid for acquittal was a battle.
"The media has been overwhelmingly against him," McMahon said. "But I think the jury listened to the evidence ... and they found what they found."
The gruesome details of Gosnell's operation came out more than two years ago during a grand jury investigation of prescription drug trafficking.
Authorities raiding Gosnell's clinic for drugs instead found bags and bottles of foetuses, including jars of severed feet, along with bloodstained furniture, dirty medical instruments and cats roaming the premises.
Partisans on both sides of the polarised US abortion debate were quick to weigh in after the verdict.
Abortion foes said the case helped to illustrate the disturbing reality of abortion.
"This has helped more people realize what abortion is really about," said David O'Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee.
He said he hopes the case results in more states passing bills that prohibit abortion "once the unborn child can feel pain."
