Belkis Gonzalez

Belkis Gonzalez (Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office / March 4, 2009)

Sycloria Williams intended to have a late-term abortion on July 20, 2006.

Instead, what she had was a baby.

More details here and here.

[Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique] gave Williams laminaria, a drug that dilates the cervix, and prescribed three other medications, according to the administrative complaint filed by the Health Department. She was told to go to yet another clinic, A Gyn Diagnostic Center in Hialeah, where the procedure would be performed the next day, on July 20, 2006.

Williams arrived in the morning and was given more medication.

The Department of Health account continues as follows: Just before noon she began to feel ill. The clinic contacted Renelique. Two hours later, he still hadn't shown up. Williams went into labor and delivered the baby.

"She came face to face with a human being," Pennekamp said. "And that changed everything."

The complaint says one of the clinic owners, Belkis Gonzalez came in and cut the umbilical cord with scissors, then placed the baby in a plastic bag, and the bag in a trash can.

Williams' lawsuit offers a cruder account: She says Gonzalez knocked the baby off the recliner chair where she had given birth, onto the floor. The baby's umbilical cord was not clamped, allowing her to bleed out. Gonzalez scooped the baby, placenta and afterbirth into a red plastic biohazard bag and threw it out.

...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. The cause of death was listed as extreme prematurity.

Williams filed a lawsuit.

Sycloria Williams is being represented by the Thomas More Society, with Miami attorney Tom Pennekamp handling the case. She is suing for wrongful death, medical negligence and personal injury. The lawsuit alleges that Belkis Gonzalez and 12 other defendants – who jointly own or work for a conglomerate of four south Florida abortion clinics – engaged in an unlicensed and unauthorized medical practice, botched abortions, evasive tactics, falsified medical records and killing, hiding and disposing of a baby who was born alive.

There are new developments in the case.

From the Sun Sentinel:

A Hialeah abortion clinic owner's lawyer this afternoon said his client will plead not guilty to accusations she delivered a live baby during a botched procedure and then threw the infant away.

"We will vigorously fight these charges," said Alberto Milian, a Coral Gables lawyer representing Belkis Gonzalez, 43, of Miramar.

Gonzalez was arrested Tuesday and charged with practicing medicine without a license and tampering with evidence, both felonies, said Ed Griffith, a spokesman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney's office.

If found guilty, Gonzalez would face at least a year in prison and up to 15 years.

...The baby's body had decomposed by the time authorities found it eight days later, said Griffith, the attorney's office spokesman.

Authorities were unable to definitively determine the cause of death -- and Gonzalez's role in it -- preventing the State Attorney's Office from charging her with murder or manslaughter, Griffith said.

Gonzalez posted $50,000 bond and was released from jail Tuesday before a hearing scheduled for this morning, Griffith said. But Janelle Hall, a spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade County Corrections and Rehabilitation Department, said no such hearing was scheduled.

"That information would have been indicated on an arrest form. It was not indicated on that form," Hall said.

According to the autopsy, the baby was born alive. Although authorities can't definitively determine the cause of the baby's death, they have determined that she was born. She died after birth.

That's not abortion. This baby girl was left to die and her remains were hidden.

Who knows how this will play out for Gonzalez?

Uncertainty about her role in the baby's death is what stands in the way of her being charged with murder or manslaughter.

Obviously, if authorities are uncertain about what Gonzalez did, she shouldn't be charged with murder or manslaughter.

But we do know with certainty that Sycloria Williams' baby daughter was murdered.

Gonzalez knows what she did. If she "scooped the baby, placenta and afterbirth into a red plastic biohazard bag and threw it out," as Williams' lawsuit alleges, then Gonzalez must consider herself lucky to have only been charged with practicing medicine without a license and tampering with evidence rather than murder.

If found guilty of these lesser charges, Gonzalez could spend a year to 15 years in prison.

What I find sort of troubling about this is that everyday babies are killed. Murder happens daily under the protection of the law at these facilities.

I'm sure similar botched abortions resulting in births occur without arrests being made.

The only difference in this case is that Gonzalez and the others at the clinic had the misfortune of having Sycloria Williams as a patient.

It's all murder, any way you look at it.