I became Executive Director of Miami Right to Life in June 1989—a small but well-funded and incredibly organized group affiliated with Florida Right to Life. I was in my 20s, and it was my first foray into pro-life advocacy. On Thursday, September 14, 1989, I was alone at the office when I received an anonymous call from a labor and delivery nurse at Miami’s Baptist Hospital.
She began the conversation by emphatically stating, “I’m pro-choice, but what I witnessed last night was wrong.” She went on to explain that she had seen a live birth during an abortion attempt, that the abortionist had then placed towels and sheets over the moving baby’s face and left the room, and that shortly after that, the child was found to be dead. Furthermore, she provided me with the patient’s name, the abortionist’s name, and that at the time of the abortion, and noted the aborted baby’s grandmother was also in the room and that she’d had a strong reaction to seeing the baby flailing after the botched abortion.
I advised her to notify the Miami-Metro Police Department, but she said that she couldn’t and abruptly hung up. Initially, I thought the call had been a prank. I called information (411) and asked for the phone numbers and addresses of Baptist Hospital, the abortionist, a florist near the hospital, and the police department’s homicide division.
I first called the abortionist’s office and verified that he performed abortions and that he had privileges at Baptist Hospital. Then, I called the hospital and pretending to be a delivery driver from the nearby florist who needed to drop off flowers, the nurses’ station where the mother was recovering verified that a patient by the name given to me by the whistleblower was still admitted there. I followed up with a call to the morgue, and after careful maneuvering, they, too, verified that they were “in possession of a pre-term baby.”
Click Like if you are pro-life to like the LifeNews Facebook page!
It was evident that the call from the nurse was not a hoax. Thirty minutes after that initial exchange, I contacted the police. Mercifully, I spoke to a pro-life detective. He carefully listened to my account, requested more details, and assured me that he would immediately call the morgue to prevent the incineration of the baby without an autopsy.
Following this, I contacted every pro-life pastor and leader in my network. We held a press conference in front of Baptist Hospital on Tuesday, September 17th. Nearly 2,000 outraged and mournful pro-lifers gathered, prompting the Hospital to agree to a meeting finally. During the meeting, the Hospital’s Vice President neither confirmed nor denied the occurrence of a late-term abortion but pledged that an investigation would be launched.
Months of discussions involving Miami’s Right to Life, the police department, the state attorney, and Baptist Hospital ensued.
Finally, in early December, once the autopsy report was completed and all involved had been interviewed, we received notice from the detectives that the state attorney reviewed the file and decided that no crime had been committed. His last words were, “I’m sorry, the case is closed.” But before he hung up, I asked if I could review the file now. He said everything was in the coroner’s report, and I had to pay for the printing cost.
I called the morgue, asked for the file, and was told I could pick it up the next day. I wasn’t prepared for the autopsy pictures, this beautiful little boy on a cold metal slab, and the subsequent pictures of him being taken apart by scalpels and scissors and saws. I regrouped and began to read.
At first perusal, I noticed how often the abortionist had called for an update. He was worried and should have been – the report was full of contradictions.
The first of these contradictions was about how far along the pregnancy was. The abortionist and hospital both claimed that it was a 2nd-trimester abortion, but the Medical Examiner determined the baby was well into his 7th month in the third trimester. The ME determined that because of the child’s size, he weighed more than 2 pounds and was 14 inches long.
Another huge inconsistency was regarding what precisely happened at the moment of birth. The nurse claims, “I saw the baby’s head emerge and, within a second, the whole body. The doctor immediately put it under linens at the foot of the bed.” But the abortionist countered with, “She (the patient) pushed, and the fetus came out, and at that time I realized — well, she had told me that she did not want to see the fetus -so, what I did is that I covered the fetus with a sheet we have there. I put the sheets and blanket or whatever it was on top of the fetus.” But was the baby breathing and moving?
The abortionist says no to both of those questions; the nurse, however, said, “The baby was moving quite a bit.” She goes on to say that the baby’s grandmother, who was in the room during the abortion, also noted that she had seen the baby “wiggle.” On the question of whether the baby was breathing, the abortionist adamantly says no. Still, the Medical Examiner’s report states that “X-rays found pockets of air in the stomach and the lungs were aerated, the fetus was breathing at birth.”
Contrary to the abortionist’s and the Hospital’s claims that the baby was born dead, the Nurse, the baby’s grandmother and the Medical Examiner all claim that the baby was born alive, the ME goes further to say that the baby struggled for breath outside the womb for nearly an hour. The abortionist repeatedly claimed the baby was stillborn, yet he told the police that 30 minutes after delivery, he was waiting to see if there was “any more fetal activity.”
The State Attorney stated that there was no reliable testimony that indicated the abortionist actively smothered the baby. OK, but certainly, malpractice happened because no medical assistance was provided to the baby as required by Florida Law. There is a preponderance of evidence in this case that the child survived the abortion attempt and was born alive. In his statements to the police and when questioned about babies who survive abortions, the abortionist said that his usual procedure is to “not do anything and let the fetus expire, don’t do anything immediately.” His usual procedure? How many babies had he killed?
The abortionist may not have actively smothered the baby, but he willfully let the baby die under a pile of dirty towels and sheets placed on the baby’s face. But the State attorney found nothing wrong with his, which begs the question, what kind of state attorney reads this report, looks at the preponderance of the evidence that there was an apparent disregard for Florida law, and concludes that no crime was committed? A pro-abortion zealot who was later labeled the Butcher of Waco, that’s who. The State Attorney for Miami-Dade County in 1989 was Janet Reno.
Despite recently renewed and boisterous attempts by pro-abortion advocates to dismiss the reality, late-term and after-birth abortions happen. They always have and at an alarming rate. The Democrats’ gaslighting of the American public on this issue is reprehensible, and the willful underreporting of these blatant lies by the mainstream media is disgraceful.
We must, and we will continue to shine as much light on these barbaric practices, and we will always think of that little boy, blonde-haired and blue-eyed, who died under the weight of dirty towels and sheets. We at Miami Right to Life named him Baby Special, and he is always in our hearts.Raimundo Rojas
LifeNews.com Note: Raimundo Rojas is the director of Hispanic outreach for the National Right to Life Committee. He is a former president of Florida Right to Life and has presented the pro-life message to millions in Spanish-language media outlets. He represents NRLC at the United Nations as an NGO. Rojas was born in Santiago de las Vegas, Havana, Cuba and he and his family escaped to the United States in 1968.
The post Doctor Left This Baby to Die After He Survived a Late-Term Abortion appeared first on LifeNews.com.
