State Legislator Calls for Criminal Charges in Florida Botched Abortion Case
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 9, 2009
Tampa, FL (LifeNews.com) — A state legislator is joining pro-life groups in calling for criminal charges to be filed against an abortion practitioner who lost his medical license last week. After a Florida Medical Board hearing on Friday, Pierre Renelique had his license revoked and will no longer be able to practice medicine.
As LifeNews.com reported, the case involves a July 2006 incident where baby Shanice Denise Osbourne was birthed following preparation for an abortion and abortion facility staff hid her body from officials afterwards.
The board found Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique guilty of medical malpractice and wrongly delegating a medical responsibility meant for physicians to unlicensed personnel.
Now, state representative Anitere Flores says local prosecutors need to move forward with their case against the abortion practitioner.
"These events are nothing short of murder. It is our duty to call for immediate charges to be filed to ensure that no other young women become victims of this clinic," she said.
Operation Rescue spokesperson Cheryl Sullenger, whose group has been issuing such a call for years since the incident, said the entire case has shown how an abortion practitioner had callous disregard for the safety of his patients and little medical training.
Renelique told the Board that he did not attend to Sycloria Williams, the teen who gave birth before the scheduled abortion, at his Hialeah abortion clinic when she was in labor because he was attending to another patient who was bleeding.
"So, in other words, he couldn’t take care of William’s botched abortion because he was trying to tend to a second botched abortion," Sullenger told LifeNews.com. "The Health Department got it right when it declared Renelique a danger to the public."
During the hearing, board member Dr. Jason Rosenberg rebuked Renelique for his "callous disregard" for Williams, saying, "You acted as though you had no interest in treating this patient."
Renelique also admitted that when he finally did arrive to attend to Williams, he was so confused and unaware of her condition that he started an abortion procedure on the sedated woman even though she had delivered an hour earlier, Sullenger explained.
"That’s when one of the employees came to me and said, ‘Dr. Renelique, what are you looking for?’ I said, ‘I’m looking for a fetus.’ And she said, ‘What fetus?’" he told the panel.
Sullenger said she is thankful that others are seeing the problems her group has focused on for two years.
"One has to wonder, though, how many women could have been spared and how many babies could have been saved, if the authorities had acted more swiftly. But, as the saying goes, it’s better late than never," she concluded.
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