An incident at the Florida Hialeah abortion clinic has attracted attention in the mainstream press. The Miami Herald ran an article about an eighteen-year-old woman who claimed to have given birth to a living baby at the clinic.
Other witnesses confirmed the story. From the article:
“She told police she went for an abortion on July 19 and clinic employees gave her drugs to begin dilation. The next day, the teen said, she went to the clinic to complete the procedure. When she told the clinic staff she wasn’t feeling well, they put her in a recovery room while she waited for the doctor to arrive.
In the recovery room, she said, she suddenly gave birth. She told detectives she saw the baby gasping for five minutes as clinic staffers began shrieking, according to a search warrant.
On July 22, detectives searched the clinic — but did not find the baby. Five days later, a source told police the baby had been tossed on the roof of the one-story strip mall.
On July 28, investigators raided the clinic again. This time, they found the baby inside a red biohazard bag in the clinic.”
In an autopsy the age of the baby was estimated at 22 weeks after conception. One week older than this premature baby who survived:
It was later determined that the living baby had been stuffed into a plastic bag by Belkis Gonzalez, co-owner of the clinic.
Detective Tony Rodriguez, the lead investigator on the case, was quoted saying:
“In 24 years of law enforcement, I have never seen a case like this.”
In November an autopsy on the aborted baby girl revealed that she had indeed been born alive. She had black hair and brown eyes. The baby was named Shaunice Denise Oshbourne. According to a spokesman for Operation Rescue, who obtained the autopsy:
“Once she [Shaunice] was born, she was deserving of the same protections under the law as the rest of us….Shoving her into a plastic bag and tossing her onto a roof to die is just unconscionable.”
Despite the undisputed fact that a baby was born alive, no charges have been filed, and none are foreseen since the baby would not have officially been considered ‘viable’ for another week.
Sources:
“Fetus’ Age Key to Possible Charges Against Hialeah Abortion Clinic: Procecuters Looking into a Case at a Hialeah Abortion Clinic Where a Baby was Born Alive are Weighing Whether to File Criminal Charges” Susannah A. Nesmith, David Ovalle and Jacob Goldstein, The Miami Herald Sep 17, 2006
“Autopsy Confirms that ‘Aborted’ Florida Baby was Born Alive” OR Press Release
“Dead Baby Found in Abortion Clinic: Clinic Closed” by Dave Malkoff
Dr. Martin Haskell was at the center of another live birth controversy. In the National Review article “Dismemberment and Choice” by Michael R. Heaphy, a possible live birth is described by University of Cincinnati student Yvonne Brower. Brower called up Dr. Haskell for permission to witness abortions because she was working on a term paper. She witnessed these abortions on September 21, 1989.
Later, she filed a complaint with police.
The following is an excerpt from the police report:
She stated that by 11 o’clock she had already observed two “D&E” three-day procedures on two patients. She stated on the third patient, however, the abortion was different …. The patient’s water was already broken and she spontaneously gave birth prematurely before the proper D&E procedure could be done. She stated that the baby was delivered feet first very quickly through the birth canal. The head was on its way out when Dr. Haskell reached over and got his scissors and snipped the right side of the baby’s common carotid artery.
Even then, the report reads, the baby wasn’t dead.
The complainant stated that the baby was still moving when she looked at it once again …. it was breathing shallow breaths, as was evidenced by the chest moving up and down. She stated that she could also observe the baby’s hand having slow, controlled, muscular movements, unlike the short jerky twitchy motions she had seen and learned to expect when the baby was already dead before it came out of the birth canal.
Dr. Martin Haskell described the abortion (in The Dayton Daily News) as follows:
“it came out very quickly after I put the scissors up in the cervical canal and pierced the skull and spread the scissors apart. It popped right on out …. the previous two, I had to use the suction to collapse the skull.”
It was Brower’s word against the abortionist’s. No charges were filed.
Jill Stanek, R.N., who first brought the issue of “live birth abortions” to the public and legislators, discusses cases of infants refused medical care after being born during abortions- well after the Born Alive Infant Protection Act was passed.
“When President Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act into law two years ago this month, I thought the practice of aborting babies alive would end.
It hasn’t.
Because I travel the country and speak about my experience as a nurse who witnessed babies being aborted alive, I am occasionally approached by nurses who relate similar stories.
And when I am interviewed on the radio, nurses will invariably call in and tell about them, too. Kentucky, California, Pennsylvania, everywhere.
The following came to me via email from a nurse just a few months ago. The hospital where this took place is in the Columbus, Ohio, area:
A woman without prenatal care arrived at the hospital at 22 weeks [gestation] with twins. She had no insurance. On assessment she was found to have a heart problem and very high blood pressure. She was seen by our high-risk perinatologist, who recommended delivery for her health. She was placed on I.V. Magnesium Sulfate and monitored. In the morning, while I was caring for her, her blood pressures were stable, and her life did not seem in imminent danger. I even discussed the possibility of turning the Mag off with her doctor.
The residents then went in to her room. I remember one of them saying, “We can’t make her out as some sort of monster because she does not want these babies.” I believe if the patient had wanted the babies, every effort would have been made to keep her pregnant until they were viable.
However, since this was an unwanted pregnancy and “her life was in danger,” approval was given to induce labor. The twins were born. No measures were made to resuscitate the infants. They were not assessed by anyone but the RN caring for the mother. They died shortly afterward. The weights were not taken until the babies died. It was absolutely horrible.”
A nurse in Florida sent this to me:
“I came to work one morning to find myself assigned to a 25-week termination. At 25 weeks, a baby’s organs are all formed, the eyelids open, and the baby has the potential for survival outside the mother. This baby was being aborted because he had a genetic abnormality called Trisomy 18.
When I said I didn’t want to do this, I was told I had a responsibility to care for the patient.
I was called to the room by my patient when she felt the baby coming. The obstetrician was not in the hospital.
The baby delivered quickly, totally encased in the amniotic fluid- filled sac. When I broke the bag of water, the baby began breathing. I never expected the baby to survive, and I immediately panicked, because everything in me said I needed to resuscitate this baby.
I called the neonatal nurse practitioner to the room. She said I could do nothing but monitor for the time of death. I can’t even begin to convey to you the overwhelming emotion that came over me – fear, anger, grief. I sat on the patient’s bed sobbing as I waited for the heartbeat and respirations to cease. The baby died in approximately one hour. I immediately resigned.”
Another nurse related the following story to Jill Stanek:
The mother was expecting to deliver a baby with severe interior anomalies and external defects. Instead, the baby came out alive-with no signs of the external defects that should have been immediately obvious.
“The mother freaked out and started screaming, ‘Someone help my baby!’ ” Stanek recalled being told. “At the parent’s insistence, a neonatalogist was summoned who told the parents there was nothing he could do because the baby was born too early. The baby was wrapped in a blanket and given to the grandparents to hold until it died. The mother was so traumatized she had to be sedated.”
“THE DAILY MAIL” (UK newspaper): Tuesday June 29, 2004 OUR BABY DAUGHTER LIVED THREE HOURS AFTER THE ABORTION
“A couple whose baby was born alive after an abortion at 21 weeks have told of their anguish as Health Service staff stood by and let her die.
The little girl, who had Down’s Syndrome, survived for three hours after being delivered into a cardboard bowl.
Her parents, who claim they were ‘coerced’ into a termination in the first place, claim nurses at Macclesfield District General Hospital were reluctant to offer any medical help.
They say that they were told later that their baby had not ‘really’ been alive, even though she was clearly breathing.
The disturbing case follows a warning from doctors and midwives that babies are being born alive after botched abortions then denied medical care and left to die.
The parents, who do not wish to be named, already have a toddler, a teenager and a 12-year-old with learning disabilities and felt unable to cope with another special needs child.
Consultants and nurses did not suggest the possibility of continuing the pregnancy and having the Down’s child adopted, it is alleged.
The 41-year-old mother, who is considering legal action, said last night:
“I don’t want any other woman to go through the same nightmare.”
“If I had been given any idea that the baby would be born alive after an abortion I would never have gone through with it. They coerced me.
“I have seen how society treats children with disabilities and it frightened me to bring another special needs child into the world, but somehow we would have coped with it.”
Two days before the abortion in March, the woman was given tablets which she was told would cut off the blood supply to the placenta and kill the baby in the womb.
She said:
“We were sent home and to our distress the baby was still clearly moving. When we went back to hospital on the Monday we were told the tablets didn’t kill the baby but they were to get the baby ready for labour.
“We said if there was an outside chance of this baby being born alive we would not go through with it, but they assured us the baby would die during labour.”
The baby was born after a two-and-a-half-hour labour induced by drugs.
The mother said:
“She was perfectly formed and tiny. I wanted to hold her and was handed the baby in a cardboard dish. My partner got her out and she gasped for breath. Her heart was visibly beating.
“She felt really cold and so he put her inside his shirt to keep her warm. All the time she was alive there were about ten different staff who came in and looked but they never said a word. The offered no assistance.”
After an hour and a half, she begged for an incubator, which was wheeled in and not switched on. The baby eventually died in her aunt’s arms.
The day after her death, a nurse told the mother: “The baby was not really alive. She was just having reactions.” The 46-year-old father, a trading analyst for a betting firm, said he was “devastated” by the tragedy.
“Our lives have been changed for ever” he said. “Emotions ran high, our relationship suffered. We have stumbled through our lives since that day.”
Pro-life campaigners said the case was a tragedy for the entire family.
Nuala Scarisbrick, of LIFE, said:
“They are the victims, not just the baby. The callousness of putting a baby in a sick bowl and the mother having to warm the baby is appalling.”
East Cheshire NHS Trust, which runs the Macclesfield hospital, said guidance from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists for late abortions had been followed.
A spokesman added:
“It is regrettable that the patient’s experience was so distressing and we would wish to reiterate our sympathies.”
“The confusion regarding the status of abortion survivors is reflected in events that happened two years ago in Cincinnati, Ohio. A young woman learned she was pregnant and sought the assistance at the clinic of the abortionist Dr. Martin Haskell, inventor of one variation of the partial-birth abortion procedure.
Dr. Haskell performed the first step of the partial-birth abortion procedure–dilating the woman’s cervix–and she was to return the next day. The next morning the woman began experiencing severe abdominal pains and reported to the emergency room of Bethesda North Medical Center in Cincinnati. While she was being examined, the young woman gave birth to a baby girl.
The attending physician placed the baby in a specimen dish–like any other substance that is removed from the body–to be taken to the lab by a medical technician. When the technician, Shelly Lowe, saw the baby girl in the dish she was stunned when she saw the girl gasping for air.
`I don’t think I can do that,’ Ms. Lowe reportedly said. `This baby is alive.’
“After doctors concluded that the baby was too premature to survive (by some estimates she was born at 22 weeks, although some members of the hospital staff believed she was older), Ms. Lowe held the baby, whom she named `Baby Hope,’ until the child died, wrapping her in a blanket and singing to her as she stroked her cheeks. Ms. Lowe said: `I wanted her to feel that she was wanted. . . . She was a perfectly formed newborn, entering the world too soon through no choice of her own.
22 week sonogram
Surprisingly, Baby Hope lived for 3 hours, without the benefit of an incubator or other intensive care, and breathing room air, but her condition was not reassessed by the physicians.”
The following are cited:
“Finger-Pointing Follows Baby Hope” Cincinnati Post, April 22nd, 1999 15A
Mona Charen, “Baby Hope” Washington Times May 17, 1999
Mona Charen, “Baby Hope, Part 2” Washington Times May 24, 1999
More on Baby Hope comes from the article “The Story of Baby Hope” by Liz Townsend.
“Hospital workers who cared for Baby Hope report continuing feelings of sadness and grief, but also peace — “peace that she was comforted, held close, and even sang to until she took her last breath,” according to nurse Connie Boyles. Emergency room technician Shelly Lowe held the baby until she died three hours and eight minutes after her birth. “I sat and held her. I felt no one should die alone,” said Lowe at an April 20 news conference held by local pro-life groups. “We had her baptized. I named her Hope because I’d hoped she would make it.”
Lowe said that her whole view of the abortion issue has been changed since Baby Hope’s death. “I was always pro-choice, and I’ve changed to pro-life,” she said. “This is a baby that could be alive right now.”
The article goes on to quote Mrs. Lowe
“Her bottom lip would go in,” Lowe said. “She would move her hands. The hands would open and close.” The baby’s death certificate reinforces the tragedy of her short 1ife. The cause of death is listed as “extreme prematurity secondary to induced abortion,” which is deemed a “natural” manner of death. She has no official first name and no social security number, and her life is succinctly described by the stark words “never married” and “never worked”. She was cremated.”
The nurses who went public with the story of Baby Hope were shunned by fellow members of the medical community for coming forward. Pro-Choice groups also attacked the workers in press releases.
“We are … extremely concerned about the seeming disregard for this woman’s confidentiality exhibited by hospital employees who went to Right to Life with this story”, National Abortion Federation Executive Director Vicki Saporta said in an April 20 press release. “No woman should have to fear that her personal medical experience will be used as a tool by politicians and anti-choice organizations to further a political agenda.”
“Talking points” included with the press release described the incident as the “miscarriage of a 22-week nonviable fetus.”
Also:
“A spokeswoman for another pro-abortion group, Sue Momeyer, chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky, told the Associated Press, “I am concerned that what looks like a very difficult and tragic situation is being used for political purposes.”
This comes from organizations that see absolutely no problem in exploiting the situations of individual women who died from illegal abortions, even when those women put themselves in danger precisely because they wanted to keep their abortions secret.
From a summary of the hearing for the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, which can be found here, Library of Congress Report 107th Congress House of Representatives Allison Baker, a registered nurse, testified about several live birth abortions she witnessed:
20 weeks
“The first occurred on a day shift. I happened to walk into a `soiled utility room’ and saw, lying on the metal counter, a fetus, naked, exposed and breathing, moving its arms and legs. The fetus was visibly alive, and was gasping for breath. I left to find the nurse who was caring for the patient and this fetus. When I asked her about the fetus, she said that she was so busy with the mother that she didn’t have time to wrap and place the fetus in a warmer, and she asked if I would do that for her. Later I found out that the fetus was 22 weeks old, and had undergone a therapeutic abortion because it had been diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome. I did wrap the fetus and place him in a warmer and for 2 1/2 hours he maintained a heartbeat, and then finally expired.”
The second baby was 20 weeks old.
“[d]uring the time the fetus was alive, the patient kept asking me when the fetus would die. For an hour and 45 minutes the fetus maintained a heartbeat. The parents were frustrated, and obviously not prepared for this long period of time. Since I was the nurse of both the mother and the fetus, I held the fetus in my arms until it finally expired.”
Also in the document:
“The third incident witnessed by Mrs. Baker involved a 16 week-old fetus with Down’s Syndrome. `Again,’ Mrs. Baker testified, `I walked into the soiled utility room and the fetus was fully exposed, lying on the baby scale.’
16 week unborn baby
Mrs. Baker then found the nurse who was caring for the mother and the baby and offered her assistance.
`When I went back into the soiled utility room,’ Mrs. Baker said, `the fetus was moving its arms and legs. I then listened for a heartbeat, and found that the fetus was still alive. I wrapped the fetus and in 45 minutes the fetus finally expired.’
“Mrs. Stanek testified about another aborted baby who was thought to have had spina bifida, but was delivered with an intact spine.”
And
“On another occasion, an aborted baby `was left to die on the counter of the Soiled Utility Room wrapped in a disposable towel. This baby was accidentally thrown in the garbage, and when they later were going through the trash to find the baby, the baby fell out of the towel and on to the floor.’
Note this quote from The Journal of Clinical Nursing 2002, article entitled “Working with Women Experiencing Mid-Trimester Termination of Pregnancy, the Integration of Nursing and Feminist Knowledge in the Gynecological Setting” pgs 273-279:
“In the case of late termination, the death of the fetus before delivery, though usual, is not inevitable except in rare cases of extreme physical abnormality…At times the fetus will actually attempt to breathe or move its limbs, which makes the experience extremely distressing for nurses. Also, whereas the woman will probably go through this process once in her lifetime, nurses may go through it several times a year or even in the same week.”
Author and lecturer Annette D. Huntington, BN, PhD. seems to think these live births are a regular occurrence.
“Angele” was pregnant and in a bad situation. She had been seeing a Christian counselor for months, and they encouraged her to have an abortion in the second trimester.
This perfectly formed 22 week old baby was aborted at Orlando Women’s Center in Orlando, Florida in April 2005. According to this child’s mother, who wishes to be identified only by her first name, Angele, he was born alive. Here is Angele’s story, told in her own words.
“I counseled with a pretty and petite younger black woman who has a small son. Her name began with an L. I do not remember her full name. She explained the process of laminaria insertion. I asked her other questions such as, will they inject saline or urea into the amniotic sac? I was concerned that it would hurt the baby as it generally (from what I’ve read) burns the skin and lungs. I expressed my concerns that he not suffer or feel anything.”
“The injection burned a lot as it went in. … The discomfort was distracting. I still felt the ‘lams’ as they were being inserted. Dr. Perper told me to relax my muscles and noted that my cervix was slightly soft. I asked him what that meant and he said it was good.”
“I wanted it to be as humane and painless as possible for my son. They told me they would guide a needle directly into his heart and it would put him to sleep, and he wouldn’t feel anything.”
However, for reasons not entirely known, the digoxin that would have stopped the fetal heart was never injected. After putting in the lamanaria, the doctor sent her to the hotel to sleep and told her to come back the following day. “My friend and I took a taxi back to our hotel. We rested up a bit, changed and walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner. That night, all night off and on I could feel the baby still moving. I told my friend this worried me. I remember thinking it must take time to slow down and stop his heart. I was still a little ‘out of it’ from the medicine and just figured I must have been mistaken about how the digoxin was supposed to work. He was still moving when I went to sleep. I was concerned and started to call the after-hours line, but again second-guessed myself.” When Angele came in the next day, her contractions had already started. She was taken to a cold delivery room. “I was directed to ‘the room.’ I had been there for a moment the day before and thought it to be a waiting room for family or driving companions. It had a leather sofa and a fabric sofa, both with a white blanket stretched across the seat cushions, a small television and a few magazines.” “My contractions became stronger and more frequent very rapidly. I called for [staff member] Violene, thinking it was time to be moved into another room and wanting to know if I could have anything for pain. She said that medication would stop the contractions and for me to stay right there and again, she would be back. I told her it was almost time; I could just tell, and she told me I was not at all ready. She left. I began to bleed.”
“I came back to the sofa, (they both really smelled awful), wrapped up in the wet and sour-smelling blanket, then decided it was better without it. I rocked back and forth on my hands and knees, trying to hold the heating pad to my stomach to both relieve the pain and try to stay warm. I was looking down and saw little smears and spots of dried blood on the floor and an old cotton ball with blood on it by the fabric-covered sofa across from me. Noticing how dirty it was and how no one was in the room or even nearby in the hallway began to make me nervous and uncomfortable. I went right back to the powder room and began to try to push a lot. I thought it might help since I was told I was not nearly ready to deliver.”
“In one agonizing push, I felt and heard something come out. Then immediately another push. I was weak. I just held my head in my hands for a moment. Then I decided to stand up. I looked. There was my baby, the whitish cord and what I thought surely must be the placenta.
“I started sobbing and lay down in the floor. I stared and stared at my son. I was horrified that I had just had him in a commode.”
“His right leg moved. He curled up a bit like he was cold; I screamed for Violene! No one came. I managed to get to the doorway, pants down, blood everywhere and yelled again. I went back to my baby. I heard her say she’d be right there.
“I showed her Rowan, told her he was alive and moving and to call 911! She took a quick look, said he’s not moving now and she’d be back to take care of things while walking out. I called her again. I was touching Rowan softly and he moved again. I called her back. Rowan jumped, I think startled by the loud sound of my calling for help. I showed her that he was moving and alive. I begged her to hurry and call 911, now!
“She said for me to lie down and she would get her supervisor. No one came.
“I continued to try to caress and comfort my son by rubbing his back, tummy and chest. I stroked his precious little head and kept telling him I loved him and we would be OK. I was afraid to move him because I did not want to do anything that might end up hurting him. I pushed my pinky into his little hand and his fingers curled around me. Still no one was coming. I was terrified but trying not to let him know I was scared. I kept telling him what a beautiful son he was and that we were going to be safe soon.
“I left Rowan for two seconds, grabbed the phone, jumped back into the bathroom to be with him, calling my girlfriend ‘Sharon’ at the same time,” she wrote. “I told her Rowan was alive and no one was helping us to please call an ambulance to the clinic immediately and hung up.
“I stayed beside Rowan talking to him, telling him how strong he was being and how proud I was of him. I told him God must really want us to be together for him to make it through everything he had just been through and that Mommy was so sorry but so happy to have a chance to love him. I told him he was a strong little miracle and that I couldn’t wait for him to meet his brother and sister. I just kept touching him, trying to warm him with my hands and talking to him so he would not feel any more afraid than he already must.
“Then Rowan stopped moving.”
…
“He was perfect, slightly pale and a little translucent. His eyebrows were pale but wide and well-defined. You could see little hairs on his face and head. He had the tiniest little fingernails and toenails. I noticed they already had a little bit of growth. His mouth was lovely. He was this perfectly formed one pound, one ounce human being. He was beautiful. He had been so strong.
“I wrapped him in [a] blue pad instead of one of the wet blankets. I just kept kissing him and telling him I loved him so much. I told him I was sorry I couldn’t get anyone to help us and I was so sorry for ever coming here.”
At that point, Angele says, staff member Debbie came in a demanded to have the baby. Angele refused.
“Oddly, she came back within two or three minutes,” Angele wrote. “She was more irritated and insistent than before. I was irritated that she was rushing me and that she did not seem to be in such a hurry when Rowan was alive. Where was she when Violene was supposedly going to get her and we needed her help? She asked again to take him. I flatly refused her. I could tell she was angry. I did not care. I told her that I expected her to leave me alone so I could finish praying with Rowan and that we needed privacy.”
…
“Surprisingly, Angele said, the police came to the clinic instead of an ambulance.
…
“Angele says her friend overheard a staff member saying she did not see the baby move, a contention that angered the distressed mother.
“I saw Violene one more time, and I was furious after what ‘Sharon’ told me,” Angele wrote. “I spoke to her telling her how little I appreciated them telling the police my child was not alive. I stared hard at her and said, ‘Violene you saw him moving. That is when you were supposedly going to get your manager and “take care of it.” You stayed away until Rowan died. I don’t care what you say, you and I both know he was very much alive. We know the truth.’ She said nothing and turned away.
“They gave ‘Sharon’ a bag with my medicine and we left. Oddly enough, they no longer needed me to be seen by the doctor at 2 p.m.,” Angele wrote, saying the staff just wanted her “to leave as quickly as possible.”
“The first two times I told Violene to call 911, I thought she would. It hadn’t crossed my mind that she wouldn’t…. It finally dawned on me: They’re not going to help me save my son.”
Source: Ron Strom, “Abortion Staff Ignores Baby Born Alive?” Sunday, July 9, 2006.
The local coroner refused to autopsy the body of the baby. An autopsy performed later by Dr. Garavaglia could not conclusively verify that the baby was born alive; however, the doctor concluded that it was “probable” that the heart was still beating after the baby was born. Her report did prove that the clinic’s contention that the baby could not have been born alive because he had been injected with digoxin was false. As Angele said, the baby was never injected with chemicals prior to his birth.
(After Abortion Autopsy Can’t Rule Out Live Birth- Shows Abortion Clinic Claim False” 5/3/05 by Lifesite)
More pictures of Baby Rowan:
The article “Death By Drowning” from World by Lynn Vincent 6/18/05 referred to an interview with a paramedic who responded to the call about Baby Rowan. According to this paramedic, he and his partner were convinced not to go inside the clinic because one worker (probably Violene) told him that there had been no live birth.
“A patient had merely “passed some tissue”….and that “the physician had the situation under control.”
Paramedics had come to the clinic because Angele had called a friend on her cell phone and begged her to call 911 on her behalf. Here is a transcript of this call:
OFD: Orlando Fire Department.
(Unintelligible.)
OFD: Thank you what is the address of the emergency?
Friend: 609 West Virginia Street. The EPOC Center.
OFD: 609 West Virginia? One moment please.
Friend: Let’s see … I don’t have the address on me. A friend of mine called form the abortion clinic and her baby was born alive.
OFD: Okay. Do you know the closest intersection. Did she call you on a phone?
Friend: Right, she called me off her cell phone.
OFD: Okay. Did you ask her to call 911? Because …
Friend: She asked me to call because she was back there with no kind of … They were just telling her to leave it … this is gross but … leave it in the toilet, you know, and let it die.
OFD: Is she in a house?
Friend: She’s in the clinic, the abortion clinic.
OFD: Okay.
Friend: Correct. EPOC. Center. Oh my God! I’m freaking out!
OFD: Did she call from a cell phone?
Friend: She called from her cell phone.
OFD: Okay. What did you say? She was having … the baby just came out?
Friend: Right. She as getting an abortion and the baby came out and it was still living. And they’re wanting it to die.
OFD: Okay. And she’s inside the clinic?
Friend: Correct.
OFD: Okay. Let me give a call to the county. Hold on. Actually, do not hang up. Just hold on the line, okay?
Friend: Okay.
DISPACHER CALLS COUNTY
OCFR: Orange County Fire and Rescue
OFD: Hi can you look up a couple of addresses for me. I have a 911 caller on the line with a baby. She’s in an abortion clinic and the baby is born and it’s still alive. They don’t know for how long.
OCFR: What would we be going for?
OFD: Uh, it would be for an obstetrics. It’s a female that’s in the center, I guess for … it’s an abortion clinic but the baby was born, and it’s alive at this moment and they don’t know for how long.
OCFR: Oh!
TRANSFER TO ORLANDO FIRE DEPARTMENT
OFD: Orlando Fire Department.
Friend: I need an ambulance to 609 Virginia Drive in Orlando.
OFD: 609 Virginia Drive?
Friend: Correct.
OFD: Okay, and what going on there?
Friend: Uh, it’s the women’s clinic. Uh, my friend was having an abortion and the baby was born alive.
OFD: Okay, you said the baby was born?
Friend: Correct.
OFD: Okay, hold on one second for me.
Friend: Okay.
OFD: 609 Virginia Drive?
Friend: Correct.
OFD: What’s the business name?
Friend: Uh, EPOC Clinic for Women. E-P-O-C.
OFD: EPOC Clinic for Women? Okay. Is there a phone in the building?
Friend: Yes.
OFD: Okay, can you call me from that or just pick up that phone and dial 911?
Friend: Uh, well I’m not there. She’s there. She called me and they’re not allowing her to use the phone there.
OFD: Okay.
Friend: But they’re wanting the baby to die.
OFD: She wants the baby to live?
Friend: Correct.
OFD: Okay.
Friend: She was expecting it to not be alive, and it is.
OFD: Okay. I’m going to get help out there.
Friend: Okay.
OFD: Just stay on the line with me.
Friend: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
OFD: Okay the baby’s been born?
Friend: Correct:
OFD: How long ago, do you know?
Friend: Uh, she just called me. It wasn’t 10 minutes ago. And said that the baby was born and it was alive and they were wanting her to leave it in the toilet. And uh … just let it die. And uh … she’s not wanting that to happen.
OFD: Okay, we do have help on the way like I said. We’re going try and call the center as well as have someone on the way.
Friend: Thank you very much.
OFD: Your welcome.
DISPATCHER CALLS WINTER PARK FIRE DEPARTMENT
OFD: Hi. Can you respond with us to 609 Virginia Drive?
Ambulance: For?
OFD: Uh, this is supposed … This is the EPOC Center E-P-O-C Center for Women. We are going for a lady that is in an abortion clinic. She says that the baby has been born ten minutes ago, but the center wants to kill the baby and will not let the mother call 911.
Ambulance: Woah!
OFD: Uhm hmm! So we have a third party calling because the mother did call 911 … uh …call a family member.
Ambulance: Okay, so we are the way now. Alright. okay.
LANSING, Michigan, October 27, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) Tighter legislation on the abortion industry is in the works after a local pro-life group revealed evidence of two abortion clinics having disposed aborted fetal remains with other bio-hazardous waste and medical documents in a dumpster.
According to Citizens for a Pro-Life Society (CPLS), the Michigan Attorney General and Saginaw County sheriffs concluded last Friday their 7-month investigation of two Womans Choice abortion clinics in Delta Township and Saginaw.
Back in February, local pro-life advocate Chris Veneklase confirmed suspicions that the Womans Choice abortion clinic in Delta Township was disposing bio-hazardous waste, and likely the corpses of aborted infants, along with the rest of the trash in its dumpster. Veneklase said he found the remains of 17 aborted unborn children in 17 bags marked with both the January dates of the abortions and the full names of the respective mothers.
Dr. Monica Miller, CPLS President, also investigated the Womans Choice clinic in Saginaw with Veneklase and found the same practice. Besides fetal remains, the trash bags contained bloody or soiled canulas, gloves, gauze, and surgical sheets, along with used medicine vials and urine sample cups that had women’s names written down, including some first and last names.
However the AG concludes that there are no grounds under current Michigan law to prosecute the clinics, other than that they were not properly incorporated under state law. Because the facilities were not properly incorporated, state authorities say they lack the legal grounds to discipline anyone for the improper handling of medical records.
“It is incredibly frustrating that abortion clinics continue to get away with abominations. It’s bad enough that the unborn are murdered, but their bodies are literally treated like trash,” said Miller. “Patient records are thrown away, and still nothing ever seems to happen to those who have no respect for life or for women.”
However Michigan GOP State Reps. Rick Jones, Bob Jenetsky and Joe Haveman say they intend to submit legislation that would change the law.
“I’m shocked by this dumping of 17 babies into a trash dumpster in my district, and I was further appalled that this may be a legal act under Michigan law,” said Jones, R-Grand Ledge. He called it “a sickening breach of human decency.”
The proposed law, HB 5929, would require that abortion clinics cremate aborted infants or bury them if the mother requests it. Two other bills, HB 6428 and HB 6429 would make violations of the new law a felony punishable by up to three years in jail, a maximum $5,000 fine, or both.
“I am disgusted and saddened by the actions of this clinic,” said Rep. Genetski. “Their utter disrespect for human life is abhorrent. I’m hopeful our bill package will put an end to atrocities such as this.”
Miller says that CPLS intends to have a burial service for the 17 aborted infants as soon as the opportunity arises. .
Many people have seen photographs of aborted babies. But where did they come from? The photographer of many of those pictures tells her story. This is the testimony of Monica Migliorino Miller from the Priests for Life website.
“Truth. What Does that Mean?” I think we are in rats’ alley where the dead men lost their bones.
(T.S. Eliot, The Wasteland)
When we pulled our cars slowly into the dark alley behind the Michigan Avenue Medical Center, rats scurried before our headlights, frightened by the noise of our intrusion. Our three-vehicle caravan parked in the alley off Monroe Street in downtown Chicago. We stopped in front of a loading dock upon which stood three garbage dumpsters and a filthy blue-colored trash barrel. The abortion clinic’s address, “30 So.,” was crudely painted on the barrel in white lettering. It had rained in the Loop earlier that day, causing the alley pavement to shine with a slimy oil. The filth and stench of rotting garbage nearly overwhelmed the eight of us, that included Tim Murphy, Peter Krump, Andy Scholberg, Jerry McCarthy, Joe Scheidler and a pathologist from Rush Presbyterian-St. Luke’s hospital.
We climbed onto the loading dock, opened the dumpsters, and began to search through the trash. I opened a red dumpster and yanked out one or two bags of garbage from the Michigan Avenue Medical Center. I peered into the bottom of the dumpster and saw a bag that was baby blue in color. As I hauled the bag out it was heavier than the others. I rested it on the loading dock and opened it. The top was stuffed with used and bloody surgical paper. At the very bottom was a small, heavy cardboard box. It was about the size of two shoe boxes and was sealed in silver duct tape. I carefully cradled the box in my arms and placed it in the back seat of one of the cars. Jerry, Tim and Peter put all of the other bags back into the dumpster, arranging them to look as though nothing had been disturbed. As we pulled out of the alley the rats again darted in front of our headlights.
I watched one scamper across the top of a dumpster as our car made its way down the wet and slimy path and out into the street.
We drove to Joe Scheidler’s garage to examine the contents of the box, first setting it on a table beneath a bright light. We all gathered around the table as Peter carefully peeled off the silver duct tape and opened the flaps of the box. Inside were small plastic “specimen” bags. Each bag contained the remains of an aborted baby with placenta and uterine tissue. We took the bags out and laid them on the table. There were forty-three of them in all which represented about three or four days worth of abortions at the Michigan Avenue Medical Center.
Several bags were marked with the name of the aborted baby’s mother, her age, the gestational age of the fetal child, the date of the abortion and a number. We thought the number represented the number of abortions performed at the center since January 1, 1987. On this Saturday night, March 14, 1987, the number was in the three thousands. The pathologist in our company, who had many years of experience in handling the bodies of aborted as well as miscarried fetal children, said that most of the forty-three were between six and fourteen weeks of gestation. Despite the small size of the fetal remains, their tiny arms, legs, hands, feet, rib cages, spinal columns, eyes (floating free out of their sockets) bits of skull tissue and sometimes even an intact face were plainly visible through the plastic windows of the specimen bags, looming up through their murky liquid world of formalin and blood like the inky prophecies of a Magic 8 Ball.
At the very bottom of the box lay a plastic bag that was different from the others. It was a clear plastic bag, much larger and heavier than the others. I took the oblong-shaped bag into my hands to examine it. It was stuffed full with a material I could not recognize. I turned the bag over and over in my hands, but I had no idea what my eyes gazed upon. I began to grow fearful and apprehensive about this mysterious parcel. At last my eyes made sense of a shape pressed against the plastic–a shape familiar to me yet completely unfamiliar. I saw an arm–a very large arm. Then I saw another arm and then a foot, a full inch in length.
I had looked at those arms all these many seconds but I did not see them as arms because I had no prior mental category by which my brain could recognize them. They were dismembered arms of a completely torn and mutilated body and, up until that day, my eye had never seen such a reality through which this eviscerated corpse could speak to me. It was as if an alien stranger spoke a word to me I did not at first understand until finally, after much straining to listen to the foreign tongue, I at last comprehended his message. But actually, in this case, I did not even know a language was being spoken–the silent language of this child who spoke to me the shocking word of his broken body–a language legal abortion meant to silence at the bottom of a trash container.
We took the remains out of the bag, separated the limbs that had become enmeshed in the placenta and assembled the body parts. The child, a boy, was at least six months gestational age, perhaps even older. He had been killed by the D and E (dilation and evacuation) abortion method. His body was well formed and muscular. His red and purple veins could be seen through his translucent skin. Regaldo S. Florendo, the clinic’s owner and abortionist, saw every body part as he literally tore the fetal child limb from limb and removed the parts from the womb. The clinic seemed to want to hide this child as he lay on the very bottom of the box buried beneath others who shared a similar fate. And, unlike his unwanted brothers and sisters, not a single piece of identifying information was scribbled on his plastic burial shroud. Not only was his life wiped out, but the clinic seemed intent upon wiping out his identity as well–as if, unlike the others, this one never had, a name, a mother, an age, a date of death–an existence. It is possible that Florendo felt he had blundered somehow in the performance of this abortion upon a late-term baby and in panic needed to cover it up. Perhaps he made a mistake in calculating the unborn child’s age, started the abortion, and once begun, believed he had no choice but to see, what was certainly for him, the more than usual grisly deed completed.
Andy Scholberg took photos of this fetal child. Joe Scheidler stared at the hideous corpse for a moment. He then turned around and went into his house. He said he could not look at him any more.
This was not the first night we had retrieved the bodies of aborted children from the garbage dumpster behind the Michigan Avenue Medical Center and it would not be the last. The retrieval efforts began on February 28, 1987 and lasted until April 25. In those two months we recovered about five hundred bodies. We probably missed some of the now familiar silver duct taped boxes. Tim Murphy sometimes went to the alley twice a week and came out with a box taken from the trash.
I became involved in the retrievals after receiving a call from Jerry McCarthy, who had gone on the first retrieval mission. Joe Scheidler found out about the trash dumpster babies in a most unexpected way. A man who did the advertising layouts for the abortion clinic, such as the one that appeared in the Chicago Yellow Pages, had a falling-out with the clinic management. He knew the clinic disposed of the fetal remains in the dumpster behind the building. To get back at the management, the disgruntled employee first contacted Tom Bressler, who operated a crisis pregnancy center three doors north of the abortion clinic. The clinic’s advertising man thought pro-lifers might wish to retrieve the fetal remains and do some advertising of their own–advertising that would bring negative publicity to the clinic. Tom Bressler called Joe and told him where he could find the bodies.
Week after week, I trekked from Milwaukee to the alley off Monroe Street in the dead of night to find the bodies of aborted babies. My good friend Edmund and I often went together. He and I spent hours painstakingly photographing the broken bodies with our makeshift photography studio set up either in his small apartment or mine. The powerful closeup lenses we learned to use revealed the beauty and poignancy of these fetal humans that no amount of crushing or dismemberment could entirely erase. My eyes could still behold the glory of the human being even in their crushed bodies, a glory traced within them by the creative hand of God. All of those involved with the retrieval believed it was utterly imperative that a photographic record of the aborted babies be made. We literally had in our hands the victims of a holocaust. Millions of preborn human beings had perished already since 1973, and the vast majority would never be seen. We meant for our photos to be a testimony to the humanity of the unborn killed by legalized abortion. We hoped that if we showed the photos to the public or to women headed toward the door of an abortion center, these children might save others. The photographs also were important because they proved that these children actually did live, however briefly, and were killed by a horrendous violence that literally trampled their humanity. The photos documented the brutality they had endured.
Finding the babies in the trash was like coming upon a secret. Most Americans know abortions are legal and that they occur. But for the vast majority, the fetus is a non-entity, something not real. As long as the victims are hidden, abortion remains separate from actual killing. Our photos are meant to shake people into the reality of abortion.
I was now living an unusual life, digging through trash dumpsters on a Chicago loading dock and picking the bodies of human beings out of the trash. I kept boxes of aborted children in my closet draped with a rosary. My mind was now forever etched with the memory of hundreds of torn, crushed, broken bodies–with blood, intestines, and torn skin. I came to know some of those bodies very well since I spent so much time trying to get the photographs just right. I named some of the children. David was the largest whom Andy had photographed in Joe’s garage. I had a five-month-old who, from skin tones and facial features, appeared to be black. He or she was killed by the dilation and evacuation method. Unlike most of the fetal children, the face of this baby was almost entirely intact. The baby’s lower jaw was missing; but except for one eyeball missing from the socket, this was a most beautiful, well-formed face. The eye was missing as the result of the force of the skull being crushed, something the abortionist had to do to remove the head from the womb. The back of the fetal baby’s head was totally caved in. I called this one “Baby Face.”
Perhaps more than the sight of the bodies, the smell of formalin remained in my memory. The aborted babies were packed in a twenty percent formalin solution. The odor was sharp and penetrating; it made my eyes water and irritated my nostrils. Because I often exposed myself to the bodies to photograph them, after a time the inside of my nostrils and sinuses became dry and burnt.
Tim Murphy, Peter Krump, Edmund and I would rendezvous at nine or ten o’clock on a Saturday night at Blackie’s, a bar on the south end of the Loop–a bar popular with young singles. Sometimes earlier in the week Tim would have gone by himself to the Michigan Avenue Medical Center trash dumpster and retrieved a box of babies. One night Edmund, Peter and I sat at a table at Blackies waiting for Tim to arrive. When he did, he walked into the bar carrying a large paper bag concealing the smallish, duct-taped cardboard box that contained the bodies of aborted babies.
He had found the box in the dumpster on Wednesday and brought it to the bar to give it to Edmund and me to photograph the remains.
At first we were humored by Tim’s brazenness. But then, to say the least, we all felt ill at ease with the box sitting on the table in the hip singles bar. I was also struck by something else. Young, attractive men and women professionals drank beer and Screwdrivers, played pin ball, watched sports programs, talked and laughed while in their very midst lay the hidden remains of aborted children. The tragedy of what the box contained clashed so completely with the noisy, rock music-filled, worldly gaiety of this place. The box of aborted babies thrust into the swanky bar was a kind of silent indictment of the sort of world the bar represented–the world so completely oblivious to the rejection of the aborted child
