Obama Citizenship

Eighteen and pregnant, Sycloria Williams went to an abortion clinic outside Miami and paid $1,200 for Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique to terminate her 23-week pregnancy.

Three days later, she sat in a reclining chair, medicated to dilate her cervix and otherwise get her ready for the procedure.

Only Renelique didn’t arrive in time. According to Williams and the Florida Department of Health, she went into labor and delivered a live baby girl.

What Williams and the Health Department say happened next has shocked people on both sides of the abortion debate: One of the clinic’s owners, who has no medical license, cut the infant’s umbilical cord. Williams says the woman placed the baby in a plastic biohazard bag and threw it out. …

“I don’t care what your politics are, what your morals are, this should not be happening in our community,” said Tom Pennekamp, a Miami attorney representing Williams in her lawsuit against Renelique (ren-uh-LEEK’) and the clinic owners.

The state Board of Medicine is to hear Renelique’s case in Tampa on Friday and determine whether to strip his license. The state attorney’s homicide division is investigating, though no charges have been filed. Terry Chavez, a spokeswoman with the Miami-Dade County State Attorney’s Office, said this week that prosecutors were nearing a decision. …

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.  . . . .

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.

The Department of Health believes Renelique committed malpractice by failing to ensure that licensed personnel would be present when Williams was there, among other missteps.

The department wants the Board of Medicine, a separate agency, to permanently revoke Renelique’s license, among other penalties. His license is currently restricted, permitting him to only perform abortions when another licensed physician is present and can review his medical records.

Should prosecutors file murder charges, they’d have to prove the baby was born alive, said Robert Batey, a professor of criminal law at Stetson University College of Law in Gulfport. The defense might contend that the child would have died anyway, but most courts would not allow that argument, he said.

“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.”

Excerpts from Jeff’s posting:

The autopsy showed that the baby was struggling for life, that her lungs were partially filled with air. Furthermore, recent history has shown that babies born as early as 21 weeks have eventually gone home healthy; one such infant who weighed only ten ounces at birth, Amillia Taylor (here’s a link to 22-23 week-old Baby Rowan, an example of a perfectly healthy baby boy who was killed via abortion), just turned a healthy two years old in October. In the case of this Florida woman and her 23-week-old baby, this was murder, plain and simple, and I?m not sure that most everyday people passed on the street, regardless of their predetermined feelings toward abortion, would necessarily disagree.

What a lot of those everyday people may not know, however, is that they freely elected a president who would unequivocally support the actions of the abortion clinic owner.

This is the very situation which lawmakers sought to prevent with the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, legislation which required that infants born alive after botched abortions receive life-saving medical attention, legislation which arose in part from an account by an Illinois abortion clinic nurse, Jill Stanek, who reported that such infants born alive were simply cast aside and allowed to die in storerooms and storage closets. When a version of the bill reached the Illinois State Legislature, then State Sen. Barack Obama vehemently argued against it, saying that providing medical care for infants born alive following a botched abortion would place an undue burden on the mother who had already made a decision as to the fate of her baby. …

Shanice Denise Osbourne, a pre-viable fetus if President Obama ever saw one, was born alive and subsequently killed on the morning of July 20, 2006. The account of her brief life, as well as the findings which followed after her decomposing body was later found in a cardboard box in a closet at the clinic, has been enough to bring the abortion debate to the forefront again, yet nobody makes the connection with the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and with Barack Obama.

Whenever I see a car with a crucifix dangling from the rear-view mirror and an “Obama-Biden” bumper sticker on the back, I cannot help but shake my head. Most people, because of the biased media, were not aware before the November election that Obama was willing to deny living infants, survivors of botched abortion procedures, even the most basic medical care for political reasons, that he saw no problem with these children being left to die in a back room or storage closet. Even now, as many stand horrified at the story coming out of south Florida now, I?m not sure that the connection will be made.

Elections have consequences. Perhaps, in another parallel universe, the very eligibility of this President would have been decided on how he views the status of the unborn; are they only 3/5s human (as the Constitution stipulated regarding the abhorrent institution of black slavery)?

While I realize this is but one issue upon which to make a determination concerning an elected official, it simply goes to show that everyone must always be vigilant in holding those who govern us to account.

-Phil