Reverend Earl Boyea, the Bishop of Lansing, Michigan, will personally conduct the funeral rites for seventeen aborted babies whose remains were discovered earlier this year in a trash dumpster used by the Woman’s Choice abortion center.
Members of the Citizens for Pro-Life Society organization discovered the allegedly illegal dumping of fetal remains in dumpsters outside the Woman’s Choice abortion clinics in Lansing and Saginaw.
They also found patient documents including the names of women who obtained abortions at the facilities and bloody instruments.
The discovery led to passage of a bill in the Michigan state House concerning the proper burial of babies who are victimized by abortions.
The burial will take place Saturday at St. Mary’s Cathedral with an opening Mass followed by the ceremony at St. Joseph’s Cemetery. Hundreds of people are expected to attend this rare event and the Diocese of Lansing has thrown itself into the Mass and burial preparations.
Monica Migliorino Miller, director of CPLS, who organized several searches of the Woman’s Choice dumpsters, told LifeNews.com: “In the burial of these babies we see a clash of two cultures—the culture of life vs. the culture of death.”
“Under the law these human beings were allowed to be killed and their bodies dumped in the trash. But there’s another culture that welcomes these abandoned children, sees in them the image of God, and will do what it can to reverse the injustice that has been committed against them,” she added.
Bishop Boyea agreed to conduct the burial after pro-life advocates approached him with the request.
“The last corporal work of mercy is to bury the dead, but it will be the first mercy these children will ever know,” Miller said. “And we hope healing will come to those who have had abortions.”
“In this burial the Church proclaims a witness: that human life is sacred and a challenge to America: End the injustice of abortion,” she continued. [related]
The pro-life advocates who discovered the bodies also turned up extensive medical waste as well as several patient records. The mothers’ names were plainly visible on the bags containing their aborted children.
Their discoveries prompted a seven-month-long investigation involving the Michigan Attorney General’s Office as well as the Eaton and Saginaw County Sheriff’s Departments. The Attorney General’s office has not yet completed its findings in connection with the Woman’s Choice clinics.
