Lawsuit: Florida Clinic Botched Abortion, Threw Out Live Baby

From Fox News, Thursday, February 5, 2008

Here is an excerpt from the above-listed article:

"...Williams struggled with the decision to have an abortion, Pennekamp said. She declined an interview request made through him.

"She concluded she didn't have the resources or maturity to raise a child, he said, and went to the Miramar Women's Center on July 17, 2006. Sonograms indicated she was 23 weeks pregnant, according to the Department of Health. She met Renelique at a second clinic two days later.

"Renelique gave Williams laminaria, a drug that dilates the cervix, and prescribed three other medications, according to the administrative complaint filed by the Health Department. She was told to go to yet another clinic, A Gyn Diagnostic Center in Hialeah, where the procedure would be performed the next day, on July 20, 2006.

"Williams arrived in the morning and was given more medication.

"The Department of Health account continues as follows: Just before noon she began to feel ill. The clinic contacted Renelique. Two hours later, he still hadn't shown up. Williams went into labor and delivered the baby.

"'She came face to face with a human being," Pennekamp said. "And that changed everything.'

"The complaint says one of the clinic owners, Belkis Gonzalez came in and cut the umbilical cord with scissors, then placed the baby in a plastic bag, and the bag in a trash can.

"Williams' lawsuit offers a cruder account: She says Gonzalez knocked the baby off the recliner chair where she had given birth, onto the floor. The baby's umbilical cord was not clamped, allowing her to bleed out. Gonzalez scooped the baby, placenta and afterbirth into a red plastic biohazard bag and threw it out.

"No working telephone number could be found for Gonzalez, and an attorney who has represented the clinic in the past did not return a message.

"At 23 weeks, an otherwise healthy fetus would have a slim but legitimate chance of survival. Quadruplets born at 23 weeks last year at The Nebraska Medical Center survived.

"An autopsy determined Williams' baby — she named her Shanice — had filled her lungs with air, meaning she had been born alive, according to the Department of Health. The cause of death was listed as extreme prematurity..." http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,488644,00.html

The pro-choice people I know like to parse out what's a baby. It's not a baby if you don't want it to be. It's not a baby before it's born. It's not a baby until some particular point in the pregnancy, although viability of an unborn baby is creeping ever backward in terms of weeks of gestation, thanks to medical break-throughs.

So the unborn baby is not referred to as a baby, it's called a fetus. "Fetus" used to mean "gestating baby." But not anymore.

Now the word "fetus" has come to mean NOT a human being, NOT a baby, but a complex grouping of cells feeding off of the host (what we might call the mother) that will someday be a human being. Right now this thing, this fetus, holds only the potential for being a human being.

When exactly does that potential become reality? Apparently, not even when the fetus is born. Being born does not make you a human being these days if you are unwanted; if your mother intended to abort you.

I say, give it up. Admit this not-yet-born being within is a baby.

Let's not dance around this issue anymore. Instead, to the pro-choice advocates, take a more straightforward approach, one that no one can argue with. Since the government has been given "power of the sword," add abortion to the list. In other words, war and capital punishment can be legal forms of killing people. In some countries assisted suicide is legal, and so is euthanasia: mercy killing. All the people who die in these variety of ways of killing are real people, no one can quibble over their status as human beings.

Well, so are unborn babies. They are real people, human beings, just very small ones. Are they not yet fully formed? Neither are born babies for the first 16 to 25years of their lives. Are they not able to live on their own? Neither are children until they hit their teens.

Let's all just be honest for once. Some of us feel that babies should be allowed to live once the miracle of conception has occured. Others feel that only some babies should live, and others should die. Call it what it is: killing unwanted babies and be done with it.