Complaints Filed Against Florida Abortion Business Letting Newborn Die 
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
April 29, 2005
Orlando, FL (LifeNews.com) — Two complaints been filed against a Florida abortion facility for allowing a newborn child to die after a woman gave birth to the child. With the help of the Liberty Counsel, a pro-life law firm, a woman named Angele is suing the facility for refusing to call emergency personnel.
Liberty Counsel filed complaints with the Florida Department of Health and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration. They charge that staff at the abortion facility refused to help Angele or her baby, born on the second day of a two-day abortion procedure.
They also charge Harry Perper, the abortion practitioner who began the abortion process, and James Pendergraft, the abortion business owner, with violating state law.
Liberty Counsel attorneys say a doctor should have been present during the second day of the abortion procedure. They say abortion business staff failed to provide adequate care and they cite unsanitary conditions at the facility.
“We are hopeful that these complaints will lead to immediate change in the form of discipline against the doctors and revocation of the abortion license for the clinic," attorney Mathew Staver, president of the law firm, said.
"These doctors need to be held accountable for their actions, and we intend to pursue these complaints to that end," he added.
Angele had chosen the “labor and delivery process" for her abortion as opposed to partial-birth abortion or dismemberment. She thought it would be less harmful for her unborn baby.
The woman, who is in her 30s, had asked what would happen if the baby were born alive.
“I wanted it to be as humane and painless as possible for my son," Angele told WorldNetDaily. “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."
Following her initial visit to the abortion facility, she could feel the baby still moving within her. The next day she took pills meant to induce labor.
"I waited outside, cramping and crying, for the clinic to open. My contractions were close. I had been having them for hours. I knocked repeatedly at the door," Angele told WorldNetDaily.
After she obtained access to the abortion facility, she delivered her son.
"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," Angele told WorldNetDaily.
Angele added, “I started sobbing and lay down (on) the floor. I stared and stared at my son. I was horrified that I had just had him in a commode."
Angele then screamed for help for her son, whom she called Rowan.
When an abortion facility employee finally arrived, she refused to call 911 for the baby, who was still moving. Angele ended up calling a friend, asking her to call an ambulance. But Rowan died before help arrived.
Angele wants an autopsy to be performed on Rowan’s body, but the local coroner has refused to do it.
Staver encouraged Florida officials and the state legislature to look into better safety regulations for abortion facilities.
“We are also hopeful that these complaints will serve as the catalyst for long-term change. Abortion clinics are the least regulated medical facilities in the state of Florida. That needs to change,” Staver said.
Pendergraft was convicted of extortion in February of 2001 and served seven months in prison. While the conviction was later overturned, he admitted in federal court that he obstructed justice by supporting a business associate he knew was lying.
He had hoped to get money from local officials by claiming pro-life advocates were threatening him and his business.
