PHILADELPHIA –  DEVELOPING -- A Philadelphia abortion doctor was sentenced to life in prison without parole Wednesday after he was convicted of killing three babies born alive at his clinic, along with the overdose death of a patient and hundreds of abortion law violations.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell showed no emotion as the judge read his sentences. Gosnell was given two life sentences Tuesday in a deal with prosecutors that spares him a potential death sentence.
Gosnell, 72, was also sentenced to two and a half to five years for involuntary manslaughter in the 2009 overdose death of patient Karnamaya Mongar.
Gosnell's rogue career and ensuing murder trial has become the latest flashpoint in the nation's enduring abortion debate.
Prosecutors had argued during the two-month trial that he routinely used scissors to "snip" babies born alive, and they pursued murder convictions in seven infant deaths. But the judge dismissed three of the counts, and the jury rejected a fourth.
Former clinic employees testified that Gosnell routinely performed illegal abortions past Pennsylvania's 24-week limit, that he delivered babies who were still moving, whimpering or breathing, and that he and his assistants dispatched the newborns by "snipping" their spines, as he referred to it.  Eight have pleaded guilty in the case, and a ninth was convicted at trial with Gosnell, albeit of relatively minor charges.