(Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic references) Two women who were employees of an abortion clinic called the Women’s Medical Society in West Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder on Thursday.

The clinic was operated by Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who along with his wife and nine other employees, were charged earlier this year of performing illegal, late-term abortions and killing babies by cutting their spinal cords with scissors. Gosnell is denying the allegations and is being held on $2 million bail.

Sherry West, 52, entered a guilty plea in the February 2009 death of Karnamya Mongar, an immigrant who was 19 weeks pregnant. It is believed that West administered a portion of the fatal dose that killed Mongar since she was the only employee to accompany Mongar to the hospital as she was dying.

“The evidence presented to the grand jury established that Karnamaya Mongar died of cardiac arrest because she was overdosed with Demerol,” the grand jury wrote.

The grand jury report also said that Mongar, who had come to the United States only four months prior, overdosed on sedatives and lost consciousness, spending more than three hours in a recovery room before an ambulance was called. Once paramedics arrived, it took them 20 minutes to move through cluttered hallways and cut through a padlocked emergency door.

West was hired by Gosnell after she was dismissed from the Philadelphia VA Medical Center “after being diagnosed with hepatitis C,” said the grand jury’s 260-page investigative report.

Adrienne Moton, 34, meanwhile, pleaded guilty in the stabbing death of one baby after she pulled it from a toilet and cut the baby’s throat.
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