A lawsuit was last week by a most unlikely source against an even more unlikely party. The suit was filed on behalf of Shanice Denise Osborne, a baby who died in infancy. The named defendant is an abortion clinic owner in Florida named Belkis Gonzalez.
The lawsuit claims that the baby was born alive and then brutally murdered by Gonzalez. In addition to the clinic’s owner, thirteen defendants (including abortionist Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacques Renelique and their conglomerate of four South Florida abortion clinics) have been sued for unlicensed and unauthorized medical practice, botched abortions, evasive tactics, false medical records and the killing, hiding and disposing of the baby.
According to reports, the baby’s mother, Sycloria Williams, learned she was pregnant early in July of 2006 when she went to the hospital complaining of abdominal pain and bleeding. She decided to abort the baby, and visited the Miramar Woman Center in Miramar, Fla., where she was referred to abortionist Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique. Dr. Renelique inserted laminaria sticks to dilate the cervix and prescribed additional medication to be taken that night in preparation for the procedure the next morning at a Hialeah clinic.
Williams went to the abortion clinic for her appointment. When she arrived she was given Cytotec, which induces labor and also dilates the cervix. She was sent to the recovery area to wait.
And there she sat for a number of hours.
The pain continued. And at one point, unable to sit, Williams braced herself in the chair and her water broke.
What happened next was not expected by anyone.
Williams delivered her little baby girl, Shanice Denise Osborne. There Williams sat face to face with her daughter. According to reports the baby (now 23 weeks old) writhed and gasped for air still being connected to her mother by the umbilical cord. (I should note that baby’s at this age have been known to survive, even within the last few years, right here in Omaha, Quadruplets born at 23 weeks last year at The University of Nebraska Medical Center survived).
At this point the abortion clinic’s owner, Gonzalez ran “into the room, cut the umbilical cord with a pair of orange-handled shears, stuff the baby into a red bio hazard bag and throw the bag into a garbage can.”
Over the next several days police received several anonymous tips about what had happened to the baby. Eventually, after obtaining a search warrant, the police found the baby. Shanice’s decomposing body was in a cardboard box in a closet at the clinic.
This is absolutely outrageous. I realize that this story went out on the AP and some local newspapers reported this, but the truth is this story has been pretty much muted. A child was brutally killed and we hear nothing. The charges from the grave are myriad for the unjust murder of infants.
Perhaps the reason we don’t hear anything is because the news media is so infatuated with ‘greed and irresponsibility’ of the mother of the octuplets. That women has had her house covered with news national news media for days, while this story gets buried.
The sad truth is that this story is not an anomaly. There are scores of barbaric accounts that detail the horrific events that go on in abortion clinics.
This will be a very interesting and telling case to follow from a perspective of life. If the defendants are found guilty of death of this baby then we must ask some questions. At what point does a child get human rights? How can a child be given rights outside of the womb while attached to an umbilical chord while inside they are not?
And if the case is rejected or the defendants actions are found to be negligent but not criminal, then what does this say about the judicial perspective on life? This would virtually endorse infanticide. Then of course we would be well on our way towards the sanction to kill anyone who is considered marginal (the elderly, the handicapped, etc). You can see where this type of dangerous thinking leads us naturally to become a nation that looks despicably close to the Nazi regime we valiantly opposed two generations ago.
The questions and disgust linger, along with the priority for Christians to pray for this brutality to end. If you aren’t praying for this, please pray.
We long for the coming Prince of Life, who’s government will have no end, who will reign in righteousness and tread down his opposition (IS. 9.6-7). But we now pray with humility and confidence for this unchecked murder to stop.
