:: The S.I.C.L.E. Cell ::

:: Thursday, February 06, 2003 ::

We begin with an excerpt from a friend's email yesterday:

"Did I tell you that I met the 'compassionate' husband of a woman who was aborting at 31 weeks (7 months) on Saturday? (Married, flew in from Dallas. Mother-in-law flew in from India.) I called 911 & the cops because, according to Florida abortion statutes, it was an illegal abortion. Cops didn't know what to do with it. They actually sent the security officer (off duty OPD) out to talk to me instead of sending a detective. I called the clinic from a payphone about an hour after I left and told the clinic worker that it was illegal for them to dispose of the baby's body if she was born alive. I reminded them of the Born Alive Infant Act and insisted that they call 911 if the baby girl survived the abortion. And do you know what she said? 'Well, of COURSE, Patte . . . that would be the obvious MORAL thing to do!' She sounded irritated that I would even SUGGEST that they would NEGLECT the health and well-being of a FETUS. It was all I could do to not go off on her. But, what's the use? I just hope that hearing herself utter those words.. the irony wouldn't be lost on her.

I found out that almost two hours AFTER I left, Fire & Rescue came and took someone to the hospital. I'm working all the angles to get the details of the medical rescue. Perhaps the clinic was forced to transfer the 7 month laboring woman to Orlando Regional Medical Center to deliver there. In that case the infant would have been put in NICU if she survived. OR perhaps the baby girl was born and transferred for care. I have made dozens of calls to find someone who cares. Hitting wall after wall. ( BTW: There was a Orlando Police detective right there at the abortion clinic all morning. He had been dispatched to collect the remains of a child aborted due to rape. They will use the child's body as physical evidence to convict the rapist. The detective was there from 6:30 until past noon waiting. I begged him but he refused to speak with me about my concerns over the illegal abortion of a viable infant taking place RIGHT where he and the other OPD officer were standing. What's the use of abortion laws if they are un-enforcable?)"

Aborting a 31-week-old child is all well and good in Kansas, but it's a big no-no in Florida.

Two years ago this same friend told me about a woman who aborted a 28-week-old baby at another James Scott Pendergraft facility. The woman's cousin drove her with his three young children in the car. He had offered to adopt her child, but she said the baby was not a "love child" and should not live. At the facility they injected the little girl's heart with a chemical that sent her into cardiac arrest killing her. Ms. Baez was instructed to take pills that would bring on labor and to come back in the morning. The cousin, his three young children and the mother went to a seedy hotel room to wait it out. In the wee small hours, Baez began to go into labor. The baby was born on the bathroom floor, the cousin delivering. In a videotaped interview he reveals his shock at the baby's development. He fixates on the child's full head of dark hair and indicates the position of her perfect little arms and legs. He laments that while he was on the bathroom floor looking at this child his own little child walked in on the scene: her dad is holding a dead baby and her aunt is on the floor moaning in a puddle of blood. "Whatever you do, don't look at it!" he instructs the mother as he leaves the bathroom to escort his child out and somehow explain. A few seconds later a piercing wail comes from the bathroom. The mother has looked.

The cousin rushes in for more damage control. Baez is crying hysterically saying, "Oh my God, she's so BEAUTIFUL! WHAT HAVE I DONE? WHAT HAVE I DONE???" He's freaking at this point and just loses it. "You've killed your baby, THAT'S what you've done! You got exactly what you wanted!" He wraps the baby in a towel and calls the abortion facility. The answering service picks up. "Just bring it in when we open," they advise. The cousin lets them know there is NO WAY they are all going to go to sleep in a room with a dead baby and that he is going to call an ambulance. This alarms the abortion service; the woman on the phone says to bring the baby over right away.

The children stay at the hotel as the cousin whisks the mother and dead child to the facility. (The cousin says he is still haunted by the sound of the baby rolling across the van floor and thudding into the walls every time the vehicle turned.) They arrive at the darkened clinic where a "nurse" is there to meet them. The employee unwraps the baby, takes one look at her, and runs to the toilet to vomit. The cousin goes to console her and make sure she's ok. They are told to leave, and that is that.

The cousin wants to tell someone of the ordeal so he meets with my friend, Patte. She videotapes his confession and tries to get the abortion investigated because there is some question as to the baby's age. The police won't touch it. They insult her on the phone. She persists and the records are requested. But what's this? No record exists? How convenient. Just as convenient as my record from a sister facility.

My record states that after a second trimester abortion, I had "scant" bleeding and 15 minutes later "none". Meanwhile in reality, I hemorrhaged so badly that I passed out, was given anti-bleeding injections, and was advised not to leave town: "Go to a hotel and call us once an hour until it is clear you are out of danger." I bled for months. When I finally saw a copy of my records I was floored. I don't think they lied to protect themselves, because they could have killed me and it wouldn't have been illegal - just a medical complication of abortion (sometimes referred to as "therapeutic misadventure" on maternal death certificates). I think it was just sloppy record keeping. I believe they filled out records prior to or long after the procedure. At the facility, it was standing room only on second trimester day. They had a lot of charts to complete. Why not just fill them out very quickly at the end of the day? Sloppy. It made me wonder what else might be awry at the abortion business.

I wanted the incident investigated. AHCA refused. The representative couldn't even bring herself to say the word "abortion" much less try to get justice for a woman who had aborted her child in the second trimester. I fought it, sending medical documentation that the bodies of women with HG have a compensatory mechanism in which blood volume is doubled. The AHCA physicians reviewed my case and determined, "It is quite common for heavy bleeding to occur after a second-trimester abortion." AHCA's final verdict: it was my word against his. I guess it's against policy to consider that I have never been to jail, while the man who performed the abortion (and signed off on the record) was serving a prison sentence for extortion and fraud. And I certainly had no witnesses since Melissa, the employee attending me at the clinic, OD'd and killed herself. AHCA blew me off in the biggest way just like the legal system ignores my friend when she tries to seek justice.

Abortion facilities are virtually untouchable, and they are getting away with murder.

The truth will never make you popular. Hang in there, Patte. You're fighting the good fight.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 1:27 PM # ::
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