Anti-Abortion Activists Hold Fetuses Burial

RIVERSIDE —  The remains of 54 aborted fetuses, each in a tiny white casket, were buried Sunday by anti-abortion activists who said they hoped the service would remind people of the “sacredness of life.”

About 300 people turned out for the memorial service organized by 54 area churches, whose congregation members served as pallbearers. The caskets were placed in three large burial vaults.

Some mourners wept as they placed flowers in the burial vaults.

“I’m hurt because the babies were destroyed the way they were, and I’m glad we’re putting them in a resting place forever,” pallbearer Hazel Alridge said.

“We’re using this to cause people to consider the sacredness of life and the finality of innocent death,” said Bob Shelly, a member of Alive Now Christian Center in Chino Hills.

A large headstone containing names given to each fetus marked the graves at Crestlawn Cemetery.

“I can’t imagine anyone killing their unborn child,” said Cathy Lowers, who said she is pregnant with her first child.

“I was thinking of the [mass graves] in World War II. It brought back that memory of senseless slaughter,” added her husband, Charles Lowers.

San Bernardino County Coroner Brian McCormick released the fetuses Friday to a coalition of anti-abortion groups over objections from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which has threatened legal action.

The ACLU said the release of the fetuses for Christian burials violated the separation of church and state.

The remains buried Sunday were illegally dumped in March 1997 in a Chino Hills field by a truck driver for a Los Angeles medical clinic. The driver was later convicted of illegally discarding medical waste.