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Contents © 1998
by Jim Holman.
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An Act of Mercy

FIFTY-FOUR ABORTED BABIES TO BE BURIED

By Christopher Zehnder

One spring day, children played in a field. In the course of their games, they discovered other children, much smaller than they, much younger, and dead. It was March 1997, the place was Chino Hills. The children discovered were aborted babies.

On October 11, almost 19 months after they were killed, these aborted babies will be laid to rest in a graveside service at Crestlawn Cemetery in Riverside. The 54 victims will be placed in 54 small coffins, especially made for them. Each of them has been given his own name.

These babies were at various stages of development when they were killed, anywhere "from the very earliest stage of pregnancy, six weeks, seven weeks, all the way up to six months of gestation," Troy Newman of Operation Rescue West told the Mission. "There are two, both a boy and a girl, at six months."

The 54 babies were aborted by abortionist Albert Brown, who had a clinic on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Brown's clinic was located, said Newman, in a mostly Hispanic neighborhood. Three other abortion clinics could be found in the same area.

Newman said that normally the bodies of aborted children are sent to pathology labs, and then incinerated. Brown, it seems, hired a driver to take the bodies of the 54 children. It is possible they were to be delivered to a pathology lab, but on March 14, 1997, they were found, dumped at the side of the road.

When police searched Brown's office, they discovered that he had been closed down already for several weeks, according to Newman. "The police searched his office," said Newman, "and found other things that implicated him."

The Riverside Coroner's office has been holding the bodies since March 1997. Though a group spearheaded by Bob Shelley of Chino Hills, called Concerned Citizens, requested the release of the bodies, the Riverside Coroner's Department would not release them. "We have been very persistent," said Newman, "calling them once a week, every month in the past year and a half." Finally, said Newman, "we met with the coroner on the 18th of August, and he said that they had just received a letter from the state saying these remains were no longer needed for evidence. They'd photographed them, had done autopsies on all of them. They were all therapeutic abortions. The coroner had one of two choices: either he could treat them like any other medical waste, which technically is what it's classified as, or release them over to us for a burial." The coroner decided to allow the children burial.

Newman relates that Concerned Citizens contacted Draper Mortuary, who put them in contact with Crestlawn Cemetery in Riverside. "Both of these companies are Catholic, wonderful Christian men," said Newman. "They've donated all their services to us. Crestlawn has gone so far as [to say]-- 'you want a headstone? You want a monument? Whatever you want, whatever you want on it we'll provide: casket, plots, whatever it is." Additionally, they're going to put [the childrens' monument] in a prominent location in the cemetery. They want people to come there and say, 'oh, I remember that! I remember when that happened!' 'It's not going to be tucked away in a corner'--that's what their words were. They were thanking us for letting them be a part of this."

The memorial for the babies will begin Friday, October 9 at 7 p.m. with a memorial service at First United Reformed Church, 6159 Riverside Drive, in Chino. On Saturday, October 10 at 8:30 a.m. there will be a Rosary and Mass at Saint Paul the Apostle Catholic Church, 14085 Peyton Drive in Chino Hills, while at 9 a.m. a prayer vigil will be held at Family Planning Associates abortion clinic located at 5050 San Bernardino Street in Montclair. The graveside service begins at 3 p.m.

"Our intention with these services is not to do it quietly," said Newman. "We'll not just bring in a member of the clergy, throw some dirt on it and walk away. These services are to draw attention to the fact that these are children. And that's why we've created 54 caskets. They are individuals. Each of them had a mom, each of them had an abortionist. [We are doing this] to give glory and honor to the King who created us, and to draw attention to the children who are dying every day. It's interesting, 54 is about the number of abortions that happen at an abortion clinic on a Saturday. Just about every Saturday you see just about that many women going in. Fifty or 60 children are killed. Sometimes more."

What would Newman say to someone who said these babies were being used for an opportunistic political statement? "I'd say, you're absolutely right," said Newman. "I'm really not ashamed of that. The fact is, that usually these children are incinerated and tucked away so no one sees it. We're going to make a public event out of something that is typically hidden. We're going to mourn for these 54 children individually, and at the same time, in drawing attention to this, we're going to encourage people that come to the memorial, come to the services, that as they're there, and as they're weeping and teary-eyed, we're going to say, you cannot stop here. It's not a closure. We want you to continue to feel those emotions and fight the injustice that is happening every single day."

However, said Newman, these services would be held, even if no political statement needed to be made. "We believe every child, every human being serves a proper burial," said Newman, "because we're created in the image of our Creator, and every human life has a value; and be it a few weeks old, or a hundred years old, every human being has dignity." *

Donations and requests for information can be directed to Cradles of Love, P.O. Box 76, Chino, CA 91708; or call (909) 336-4353.

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