Botched Abortion Leads To Moral Conundrum
This is a terrible story. An 18 year old girl makes the fateful decision to abort her child, but things go tragically wrong.
Shanice’s mother (named after death), 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 arrived at the Hialeah clinic on the morning of July 20, 2006, feeling ill and in severe pain from the medication the night before. Despite the fact that the doctor nor any other licensed health practitioners were present, the abortion center’s receptionist gave Williams Cytotec, which induces labor and also dilates the cervix. Williams, however, began to feel even worse with nausea and cramping. According to testimony, the staff had her sit in the clinic’s recovery room area where she waited for hours in severe and increasing abdominal pain without medical staff available.
At one point, unable to remain seated, Williams braced herself with the arms of the recliner chair she was sitting on. As she lifted herself, her water broke and she delivered a live baby girl onto the seat of the recliner. The baby writhed and gasped for air, still connected to Williams by the umbilical cord.
Immobilized by shock, Williams watched Gonzalez run into the room, cut the umbilical cord with a pair of orange-handled shears, stuff the baby into a red biohazard bag and throw the bag into a garbage can. Shortly thereafter, the doctor arrived at the clinic and sedated Williams. The doctor’s medical records failed to indicate that Williams had delivered a live baby that was killed by the clinic.
Anonymous callers notified police at least three times about the live birth and murder, and when police executed a search warrant on July 22, 2006, they found medical records but couldn’t locate the baby’s remains. Six days later, another anonymous caller told police the baby’s body had been hidden on the roof. Police responded but didn’t find the baby’s body on the roof. After another anonymous tip police got another search warrant and found the decomposing baby in a cardboard box in a closet at the clinic. DNA linked the baby’s remains to Williams.
The Miami-Dade County medical examiner performed an autopsy which showed that the baby’s lungs had been filled with air before her killing, proving it was a live birth. But the examiner blamed the death on “extreme prematurity,” ignoring eyewitness testimony that the baby had been murdered. The Thomas More Society took an interest in the case when a local law school professor was quoted in The Miami Herald to the effect that if the baby wasn’t “viable,” then it “couldn’t be a case of homicide.”
By definition, is this an abortion? An abortion is a surgical method of terminating a pregnancy, in this situation you have a birth compelled by drugs. Unless they’re willing to stipulate that snipping the umbilical cord and stuffing the writhing child into a biohazard bag is a “surgical method of terminating a pregnancy,” it’s not an abortion. It’s murder.
Why is it murder? The girl was 23 weeks pregnant, and far enough along in the baby’s development that with medical assistance Shanice could have survived. Having birthed the child onto the seat of the recliner, once the umbilical cord was cut the child was it’s own person, fighting for life, but was refused the help it needed to win that fight. We wouldn’t refuse to help a senior citizen who is near death, nor an adult clinging to life in traumatic instances; what makes Shanice ineligible for our compassion? Some will say that the wish of her mother to abort condemned the baby to execution. Her mother did abort her, but her child refused to die. Does abortion necessarily mean that the fetus must die? Isn’t terminating the pregnancy (the condition of being pregnant) enough? Regardless of medical intervention, the child was born, and at that moment moral responsibility compels the decent person to protect the life that is viable. Willful neglect of that responsibility not only makes one immoral, it makes one a murderer.
Here is the conundrum for those who support abortion. If it’s murder to kill a viable fetus that has made it outside the womb, then why isn’t it murder to kill a viable fetus inside the womb? If it’s possible to artificially induce the birth a six month old fetus and leave it to die, then it’s possible to artificially induce the birth a six month old fetus and help her to breath long enough that she wins her fight to life and becomes for some adoptive couple the love of their lives. All it takes is respect for life.
Abortion should only be legal up to the date that medical science deems a fetus too undeveloped to survive. If we have the knowledge to save life, then the abrogation of that moral responsibility makes us monsters, and not worthy of being called ‘civilized.’
MORE: The Board of Medicine has revoked the license of a Florida doctor accused of medical malpractice in a botched abortion case in which a live baby was delivered, but ended up dead in a cardboard box.
MORE: “Hastening the death of an individual who is terminally ill is still considered causing the death of that individual,” Batey said. “And I think a court would rule similarly in this type of case.”
MORE: “The defense of this action is that “the patient wanted a baby killed, and that’s what she got”? Either that, or “What’s a little infanticide between colleagues”? Got it.”
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4 Responses to “Botched Abortion Leads To Moral Conundrum”
February 6th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
This was an abortion because it was initiated with the intent of achieving a dead baby. Inasmuch as it resulted in a dead baby, it was a success, not a botch job. But there’s one little caveat — in order to succeed as an abortion, it must fail as a birth. That is, you must achieve fetal death before the baby makes it all the way out.
These places typically use lethal injection to kill the baby — yes, the same lethal injection drug used to execute criminals. But the method is different. The condemned murderer is first sedated, then given anesthetic and paralytic drugs, as if he is about to undergo surgery. Once he is peacefully knocked out, then the lethal drug is put in his IV, The condemned baby, on the other hand, just gets a cardiac needle jabbed into her heart and the painful drug pumped in. So what is “cruel and unusual punishment” when inflicted on an unconscious and anesthetized adult murderer is “choice” when inflicted on an innocent baby.
Something else to keep in mind amidst all the outrage: Things like this are literally an everyday occurrence. The strange and shocking aspect is merely that it’s being reported, talked about, and perhaps might even lead to prosecution.
Christina´s last blog post..1952: Serviceman rushes home to dying wife’s bedside
February 6th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Well said, Christina. You’ve made me even angrier, and after my country voted in a man who feels it’s above his pay grade to take a position on whether we ought to increase the number of children killed in the womb, I’m shaking my head in disbelief.
February 6th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
This story literally makes me want to heave chunks. This woman who gave birth…how is SHE not liable for murder? She sat and watched as the LIVE baby was born and thrown in a bag? And did NOTHING? Sick.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:59 am
Jenn, the abortion lobby has obscured truth, and abortion profiteers are ready to cash in on the normal denial, shock, and ambivalence of pregnant women.
Sycloria had people she’d been taught were compassionate and knowledgeable “experts” telling her that her abortion wasn’t going to kill her baby, but would only stop a potential baby from becoming a real baby. In a time of intense and painful stress — a time where your reasoning and decision-making skills are completely compromised — she trusted these supposed experts. She’s guilty of being sucked in by consumer fraud.
Christina´s last blog post..Why the sudden interest?
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