Abortion Business Owner Who Killed Baby in Apparent Infanticide Gets Lawsuit

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Oct 14, 2008   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Abortion Business Owner Who Killed Baby in Apparent Infanticide Gets Lawsuit

by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 14
, 2008

Miami, FL (LifeNews.com) — The owner of a south Florida abortion business who killed an unborn child in an apparent infanticide has become the subject of a civil lawsuit. The case involves an unborn baby who was injured in an attempted abortion and whose body was placed on the abortion center’s roof to avoid detection from authorities.

The incident involved a baby, who was later named Shanice Denise Osbourne, and who was supposed to become a victim of abortion at the GYN Diagnostic Center abortion facility in Hialeah, outside Miami.

According to witnesses, a young woman went to GYN for an abortion. Police say the 18 year-old returned the next day complaining of severe stomach pains.

Abortion facility staff told her the abortion practitioner was not available and that she would have to wait. After being taken to a waiting area, the woman allegedly gave birth to the baby that she thought had been aborted the day before.

Abortion center owner Belkis Gonzalez, a woman with no medical background, delivered the African-American baby girl. An autopsy indicated that the baby’s lungs contained gas bubbles and floated, proving that Shanice was alive and breathing at birth.

Officials say an anonymous caller, who they believe is an employee at the abortion business, alerted them to the birth and the infanticide of the child afterwards. However, when police arrived at the abortion facility, the baby’s body was missing.

They came back a second time and found the dead baby in a biohazard bag. Detectives say abortion facility staff likely moved the baby’s body the first time to avoid detection.

Shaince received a proper burial today and now, a pro-life law firm has filed a civil lawsuit against Gonzalez.

Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Society, tells LifeNews.com that the incident took place "without any licensed medical personnel (doctors or even nurses) in attendance."

He is concerned that local officials are not prosecuting the case as an infanticide because they wrongly believe the baby died naturally.

Brejcha indicates the Miami-Dade County medical examiner determined Shanice was born alive and concluded her death was “natural,” resulting merely from her “extreme prematurity.”

Officials then said that unless an infant could be proved to be “viable” her killing could not be condemned as “homicide” or otherwise culpable as a matter of law.

Brejcha told LifeNews.com late Monday that the claim is a “transparent cover for infanticide.”

“Just because a human being is feeble or disabled and supposedly can’t live independently, on his or her own, doesn’t mean that anybody has the right to kill him or her," he said.

"If you fail to examine, or aid, or treat an infant – once born – who is struggling for breath and who – with proper care – has any chance to survive to live a healthy life, you should be held equally guilty," he added.

Brejcha is upset that no charges have been brought for more than two years, even though the Department of Health restricted the license to practice medicine of the abortion practitioner, Paul Renelique, and set a further disciplinary hearing for November 19, 2008.

Brejcha and Thomas More Society decided to intervene last year in the case.

They hired an investigator, dug up more facts and witnesses, kept consulting with police, prodded prosecutors, and retained an expert pathologist who critiqued the coroner’s botched findings and found that A Gyn Diagnostics’ unlicensed staff did play a causative role in the infant’s death.

Thomas More Society also retained expert Miami counsel, Tom Pennekamp, former president of the Dade County Bar Association, and an expert and very accomplished lawyer in major personal injury cases, as its co-counsel for the purpose of bringing a lawsuit for “wrongful death” of Baby Shanice.

The law firm also complains that the operators of the abortion center shut it down but moved the center down the street and reopened it. It is also concerned that Renelique may still be doing abortions there.

“To date, the Miami Dade County Attorney has not filed criminal charges against Gonzalez,” Brejcha concluded.

“Killing a baby born alive is still infanticide, and those responsible must be held to account civilly if not also criminally. Medical advances have made it possible to successfully treat even the tiniest of premature babies. Despicably low end ‘medical care’ facilities like A Gyn Diagnostics Center are getting away with murder."

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