Doctor Death (GRAPHIC PIX)

[Duchess]

Update -

Jury selection began Monday in the murder trial of a Philadelphia abortion provider, a potentially sensitive task since the case involves both abortion and the death penalty.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell is charged with eight counts of murder. He's charged with third-degree murder in a woman's 2009 death during a botched abortion, and first-degree murder for allegedly killing seven viable babies after they were born alive. Gosnell faces the death penalty if convicted on the latter counts.

He has pleaded not guilty, and insists that he helped many vulnerable women and teens get medical care, including second-term abortions not offered at many clinics.

Pennsylvania abortion laws ban abortions after 24 weeks. Authorities believe at least some of the abortions performed at Gosnell's clinic involved third-trimester pregnancies. The 2011 grand jury report details one case in which Gosnell allegedly joked the baby was so big it could walk to the bus stop.

The nearly 300-page report described the clinic as filthy, blood-stained and macabre, with a collection of fetal body parts kept in jars.

A medical assistant told a jury Tuesday that she snipped the spines of at least 10 babies during unorthodox abortions at a West Philadelphia clinic. And she said Dr. Kermit Gosnell and another employee did the same to terminate pregnancies.

Adrienne Moton's testimony came in the capital murder trial of Gosnell, the clinic owner, who is on trial in the deaths of a patient and seven babies. Prosecutors accuse him of killing late-term, viable babies after they were delivered alive, in violation of state abortion laws.

Gosnell's lawyer denies the murder charge and disputes that any babies were born alive. He also challenges the gestational age of the aborted fetuses, calling them inexact estimates.

Moton, the first employee to testify, sobbed as she recalled taking a cellphone photograph of one baby left in her work area. She thought he could have survived, given his size and pinkish color. She had measured him at nearly 30 weeks.

"The aunt felt it was just best for her (the mother's) future," Moton testified.

Gosnell later joked that the baby was so big he could have walked to the bus stop, she said.

Moton, 35, sobbed as she described her work at the clinic. Because of problems at home, she had moved in with Gosnell and his third wife during high school, and she went to work for him from 2005 to 2008. She earned about $10 an hour, off the books, to administer drugs, perform sonograms, help with abortions and dispose of fetal remains. Workers got $20 bonuses for second-term abortions on Saturdays, when a half-dozen were sometimes performed.

She once had to kill a baby delivered in a toilet, cutting its neck with scissors, she said. Asked if she knew that was wrong, she said, "At first I didn't."

Moton has pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, which carries a 20- to 40-year term, as well as conspiracy and other charges. She has been in prison since early 2011, when Philadelphia prosecutors released the harrowing grand jury report on Gosnell's Women's Medical Center and arrested the doctor, wife Pearl and eight current or former employees. Most of them are expected to testify.