Mother tells how clinic workers left her born-alive infant to die
New details are emerging in the case of Angele, 34, a woman who says she gave birth to a live pre-term baby at a Florida late-term abortion clinicand that the child died after abortion workers refused to render aid or call for emergency help.
WORLD on April 27 obtained transcripts of 911 tapes, plus fire and police department reports on the incident, which occurred April 2 at the EPOC Clinic, an Orlando abortion business owned by late-term specialist James S. Pendergraft. Those documents verify many aspects of Angele’s story and raise serious questions about whether clinic personnel deceived emergency workers when they arrived on the scene.
Angele told WORLD she feared for the safety of herself and her two children if she carried to term her 23-week pregnancy. (For the same reason, she asked that only her first name be used.) I had been terrorized. . . . I didn’t feel I had any other choice she said.
On April 1, driven by a friend, she made her first visit to the EPOC Clinic, where abortionist Harry Perper completed the first steps of a labor and delivery abortion, Angele said. Dr. Perper was supposed to first inject the drug digoxin into the babys heart to kill him, induce labor, and deliver a dead child the next day.
But Angele says she did not receive the digoxin injection but pills to induce contractions and a cervical ointment. On April 2 around 9 a.m., she arrived at the clinic crying, cramping, and bleeding. A clinic worker escorted her into a waiting room and left her alone to wait for Dr. Perper, who was not to arrive until 2 p.m.
About an hour passed. Then, in a connected bathroom, Angele delivered Rowan into a toilet. The moment I saw Rowan . . . I cannot tell you the sickness that came over me and the self-loathing, Angele said. I was miserable, sobbing. He was perfect, perfect . . . just tiny.
Then, she said, Rowans leg moved. Next, she saw the tiny boy curl up as though cold. Angele says she screamed for clinic workers to call 911. One came and left twice without aiding either Rowan or Angele, who was covered in blood.