TAMPA, Fla. - Eighteen and pregnant, Sycloria Williams went to anabortion clinic outside Miami and paid $1,200 for Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique to terminate her 23-week pregnancy.
Three days later, she sat in a reclining chair, medicated todilate her cervix and otherwise get her ready for the procedure.
Only Renelique didn't arrive in time. According to Williams andthe Florida Department of Health, she went into labor and delivereda live baby girl.
What Williams and the Health Department say happened next hasshocked people on both sides of the abortion debate: One of theclinic's owners, who has no medical license, cut the infant'sumbilical cord. Williams says the woman placed the baby in a plasticbiohazard bag and threw it out.
Police recovered the decomposing remains in a cardboard box aweek later after getting anonymous tips.
'I don't care what your politics are, what your morals are, thisshould not be happening in our community,' said Tom Pennekamp, aMiami attorney representing Williams in her lawsuit againstRenelique and the clinic owners.
The state Board of Medicine is to hear Renelique's case in Tampaon Friday and determine whether to strip his license. The stateattorney's homicide division is investigating, though no chargeshave been filed. Terry Chavez, a spokeswoman with the Miami-DadeCounty State Attorney's Office, said this week that prosecutors werenearing a decision.
Renelique's attorney, Joseph Harrison, called the allegations atbest 'misguided and incomplete' in an e-mail to The AssociatedPress. He didn't provide details.
The case has riled the anti-abortion community, which contendsthe clinic's actions constitute murder.
'The baby was just treated as a piece of garbage,' said TomBrejcha, president of The Thomas More Society, a law firm that isalso representing Williams. 'People all over the country are justaghast.'
According to state records, Renelique received his medicaltraining at the State University of Haiti. In 1991, he completed afour-year residency in obstetrics and gynecology at InterfaithMedical Center in New York.
New York records show that Renelique has made at least fivemedical malpractice payments in the past decade, the circumstancesof which were not detailed in the filings.
Williams concluded she didn't have the resources or maturity toraise a child, Pennekamp said, and went to the Miramar Women'sCenter on July 17, 2006. Sonograms indicated she was 23 weekspregnant, according to the Department of Health. She met Reneliqueat a second clinic two days later.
Renelique gave Williams laminaria, a drug that dilates thecervix, and prescribed three other medications, according to theadministrative complaint filed by the Health Department. She wastold to go to yet another clinic, A Gyn Diagnostic Center inHialeah, where the procedure would be performed the next day, onJuly 20, 2006.
Williams arrived in the morning and was given more medication.
The Department of Health account continues as follows: Justbefore noon she began to feel ill. The clinic contacted Renelique.Two hours later, he still hadn't shown up. Williams went into laborand delivered the baby.
The complaint says one of the clinic owners, Belkis Gonzalez camein and cut the umbilical cord with scissors, then placed the baby ina plastic bag, and the bag in a trash can.
Williams' lawsuit offers a cruder account: She says Gonzalezknocked the baby off the recliner chair where she had given birth,onto the floor. The baby's umbilical cord was not clamped, allowingher to bleed out. Gonzalez scooped the baby, placenta and afterbirthinto a red plastic biohazard bag and threw it out.
At 23 weeks, an otherwise healthy fetus would have a slim butlegitimate chance of survival. Quadruplets born at 23 weeks lastyear at The Nebraska Medical Center survived.
An autopsy determined Williams' baby - she named her Shanice -had filled her lungs with air, meaning she had been born alive,according to the Department of Health.
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