HARRISBURG, PA (Catholic Online) - I recently heard from a Pro-Life champion, Fr. Paul Schenck, concerning a  critically important hearing held on Tuesday, February 8, 2011 in Pennsylvania. I have known Fr. Paul for decades. I stood with him in several capacities on his life journey. He is currently the founder and chairman of the Washington, DC based National Pro-Life Center (NPLC) and a priest of the Diocese of Harrisburg. Whenever Fr. Paul calls, I stop everything. Let me give some background to explain why.

As a lawyer, I helped to defend him for years against unconstitutional efforts to prevent him from speaking the truth concerning the intrinsic evil of every procured abortion. That culminated at the US Supreme Court when I served as Co- Counsel to renowned Constitutional attorney Jay Sekulow who successfully argued for the vindication of then Pastor Paul Schenck. Jay won a landmark case in constitutional law, Schenck v. Pro-Choice Network, which is now a part of American legal history. The precedent established helped to secure the First Amendment Rights of all who stand in solidarity with those who have no voice but ours to defend them.

In addition, I have had the privilege of being part of his journey toward the Catholic faith. It led him from evangelicalism to the Episcopal priesthood and then to the altar where he entered into the full communion of the Catholic Church. I served as Deacon at the Mass of reception where Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life received his profession of the ancient creed. It was a moment of joy I thought could not be surpassed. That was, until years later when I attended his ordination to the Roman Catholic priesthood. This journey will be the subject of a book I am helping him to write. It is a story which must be told. 

Like Fr Paul I have been involved in the great human rights struggle of our age for decades. However, it is men like him who have borne the heat of the day. He is, to borrow the nickname of heavyweight boxer Evander Holyfield, the "real deal." He was unafraid to suffer for our youngest neighbors to the point of enduring unjust imprisonment. I hired him in the early nineties while he was under "house arrest" with an ankle bracelet and I was the Executive Director of the ACLJ. After his victory at the US Supreme Court that bracelet is a symbol to me of the kind of courage I wish I had. So, when Fr. Paul calls, I listen.

He told me of this State senate hearing called in response to the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the West Philadelphia abortionist criminally charged for the commission of eight murders. I wrote about the story when it hit the national news. Seven children were executed after birth. This horrid man utilized a procedure he referred to as "snipping," severing their spinal cord with surgical scissors which he inserted into the back of their necks. The eighth charge involved the death of one of the mothers from an overdose of anesthetics administered during one of the executions.

Father Paul Schenck accompanied the leader of the Pennsylvania Catholic conference to this hearing on Tuesday. He said it was a matter of National interest which I must write about. I knew he was right. I read the 62 pages of Grand Jury testimony in this matter. It is bone chilling and maddening. It discloses the abject failure of state regulators to provide oversight of what witnesses properly called a "house of horrors."  As a former prosecutor, I admire Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams. He has shown tremendous leadership in prosecuting this case.

Williams told the Senate committee Tuesday that the grand jury felt that the agencies involved seemed "more interested in protecting the interest of the departments than the interests of women and young girls." He repeated what I heard him say in numerous interviews with the National Press after the disclosure of this crime; there is "more oversight of women's hair salons and nail salons."

He noted that though there were multiple lawsuits against Gosnell, Pennsylvania officials took no action against him until after a federal drug raid of his abortion center. The existence of this house of horrors is a result of the lack of any regulation of abortion facilities in Pennsylvania.  This facility had not been inspected in 17 years. What is needed is obvious to any reasonable person. Until they are shut down, which they should be, these places should be regulated in the same manner as ambulatory surgery centers. 

The case out of West Philadelphia revealed only the tip of a proverbial iceberg; squalid, unregulated abortion mills where women are subjected to substandard "services" and children are killed, even after they are born.  This call for regulating these houses of horror is being heard in Harrisburg. The Commonwealth's new Republican Governor Tom Corbett has promised action. The evils disclosed have garnered a ...