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Value of Catholic press highlighted by Baby Shanice storyPosted: 02.27.09 If you read the heart-rending story of the 2006 death of Baby Shanice in the Florida Catholic Miami edition or online, you know the mother went to a Hialeah abortion clinic when she was 23 weeks pregnant. In an abortion process that went bizarrely awry, the baby was born alive, but died when the clinic staff stuffed her into a plastic bag. Eventually, police found the rotting corpse in a cardboard box in a closet at the clinic a week later. It’s no more tragic that Shanice was born alive and then died, than if she died during the process, but it points out the callousness of abortion operators, and how duplicitous they can be when it comes to late-term abortions. Shanice’s mother, Sycloria Williams, didn’t realize how far along she was in her pregnancy because she wasn’t showing. A sonogram determined that she was 23 weeks into her pregnancy. Eventually, when she delivered the baby at the clinic as part of the complicated two-day, late-term procedure – without the doctor present – she was shocked to deliver a living infant. The sight of a fully formed baby was a complete surprise to Williams. “I thought it would be a blob thing, but bigger, not a baby,” she told Florida Catholic correspondent Daniel Soñe. When the Florida Catholic published this interview in early February, some people had never heard about the incident that prompted investigations of the clinic, despite our report on the funeral and burial last October. In fact, one blogger wrote that when he first saw the story on our Web site, he didn’t believe it because he hadn’t seen it reported by other “major” media outlets. After doing some fact-checking (something not enough bloggers do, by the way) with the Hialeah police department, the blogger acknowledged that we’d gotten the story right. These are the kinds of stories we at the Florida Catholic – and our fellow journalists in the Catholic press – do all the time. We cover the stories that matter to our readers, stories often neglected by other media, and we bring to those stories the expertise of media focused on news of faith and Catholic social teaching. That’s an important point to remember during February, which is designated as Catholic Press Month in North America. The Florida Catholic covers stories such as the death of Baby Shanice – and many other pro-life stories about euthanasia, stem-cell research, the death penalty, etc. – because if we don’t, you might not get this news from the other media you consume. We have a correspondent in Tallahassee on top of public policy debates, to keep our readers informed about issues at the Capitol. In this edition, you’ll read about the 2009 legislative session, which includes a bill the state House and Senate are considering again this year to require that women seeking abortions be shown an ultrasound image of the baby, unless they object; current statute requires only that the clinic perform an ultrasound to determine the fetal age (see story, page A1). Such a law still might have helped Sycloria Williams realize that Shanice was not “just a blob,” but a baby waiting to be born. As a reader of the print edition of the Florida Catholic, the center of your newspaper is filled with state, national and international news and features; your front four and last four pages are localized for your specific diocese. Only our readers in the Miami Archdiocese received the full interview with Sycloria Williams in the printed edition; other readers were encouraged to read the story on our Web site. We appreciate our print subscribers, and they receive stories and features not available online. But baby Shanice’s story highlights the fact that if you’re not reading the Florida Catholic online, you’re not getting the whole picture. You may be missing great stories from other areas around the state, and some Web-only features. We’re adapting to the realities of today’s media by constantly looking at the best way to deliver the news – in print, and by electronic means. But we won’t change our essential mission to share the Good News of Jesus Christ by educating and inspiring our readers and enriching their lives.
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