Hours before we cast our votes, here’s a sobering reminder of what is at stake, from Florida Catholic:

More than two years after her ignominious death at an abortion clinic, baby Shanice Denise Osbourne was laid to rest at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Cemetery in North Lauderdale.

Her small white casket was escorted by an honor guard of Hialeah police officers and Knights of Columbus. She was buried in the cemetery’s children’s section after a funeral service at Worldwide Church of Christ in Pompano Oct. 14.

Father Dominic O’Dwyer, pastor of St. Malachy Parish in Tamarac, conducted the graveside service. The Archdiocese of Miami donated the plot.

“When you see a small white casket like that, you can’t help but be struck by the reality of what happened to her,” said Thomas L. Brejcha, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Society, which is representing Shanice’s mother, Sycloria Shante Williams, in a lawsuit against the abortion clinic.

Williams, 18 at the time, was 23 weeks pregnant when she went to A GYN Diagnostic Center in Hialeah to abort her child. No medical staff was present when she delivered a live baby girl, police reports say. Clinic staff, led by co-owner Belkis Gonzalez, apparently panicked. Someone later called the police.

“The baby was quickly stuffed into a plastic bag with bleach and then hidden from police when they came to investigate,” Brejcha said.

Eight days later the bag containing baby Shanice’s decomposing body was found during a second investigation by Hialeah detectives.

“An informant, most likely someone who worked there and saw what happened, said that the body was hidden on the roof,” said Ed Brophy, investigator for the Thomas More Society.

The unsuccessful abortion and suspicious actions by A GYN’s co-owner and staff led to an investigation by the state attorney’s office, which is still considering criminal charges.

“We cannot comment on open investigations,” said Terry Chavez, a spokesperson for the Miami–Dade Office of the State Attorney.

In the meantime, the Thomas More Society, a nonprofit and pro-life legal organization based in Chicago, has initiated a wrongful-death lawsuit on behalf of the baby’s mother. The society has hired Miami attorney Tom Pennekamp Jr. as co-counsel. Pennekamp is a former president of the Dade County Bar Association and considered an expert on personal injury cases.

“We’re doing this because a criminal investigation shouldn’t take this long and produce no answer. There hasn’t been any real movement on this as far as criminal prosecution goes,” Brejcha said.

Pennekamp said he believes that the lack of action by prosecutors is “politics.”

“There is a bright line – that means no gray area – between being inside or outside the womb. Once a baby is outside the womb and alive, it is protected by Florida law,” he said.

There is more at the FC link.