THE LARGEST MASS GRAVE IN AMERICA?

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s05100031.htm ^ | October 7, 2005 | Rich Buhler

[Blogger]

Friday, October 7, 2005

THE LARGEST MASS GRAVE IN AMERICA?

By Rich Buhler Special to ASSIST News Service

LOS ANGELES (ANS) -- Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the sealing of what many regard to be the largest mass grave on American soil. (Pictured: Rich Buhler).

There isn’t anything that points you to the site in the Odd Fellows cemetery in East Los Angeles. You have to search for it, but it’s there on the east side of the grounds marked only by a flat gravestone that says “IN MEMORY OF THE 16,500 PRECIOUS UNBORN BURIED HERE. OCT 6, 1985.”

The story that led to the burial came to light in February of 1982 when workers opened a large shipping container that had been repossessed from the owner of a medical lab in Southern California. It was filled with buckets of the results of thousands of abortions.

Los Angeles county supervisors faced a dilemma about what to do with the remains and a feminist lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court ordered that they couldn’t be buried with religious ceremony because that would be taking sides in the abortion debate.

But on October 6, 1985, the date of the burial, there was a crowd of us who had independently come to do what the county could not do: honor the lives and mourn the deaths of the children being laid to rest.

I had the privilege of being one of those who participated in the service that day and it was an overwhelming experience as we stood at the graveside of thousands of children who by that time would have been three years old and playing in the Southern California sunshine.

During the ceremony, County Supervisor Michael Antonovich read a telegram from President Reagan. In it Mr. Reagan likened the Supreme Court decisions legalizing abortion to decisions that upheld slavery prior to the Civil War. He said, “Once again a whole category of human beings has been ruled outside the protection of the law by a court ruling which clashed with our deepest moral convictions."

That telegram got fresh national attention during the confirmation debate around John Roberts’ nomination to be the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. As associate White House counsel in 1985 he was asked to review the text of President Reagan’s statement.

For several years, the grave of the babies was unmarked because of conflict over what to say on a gravestone. I had the privilege of again being a part of the service that later dedicated the memorial marker.

In my remarks I speculated what the demographics might be of the children buried there. If they were representative of the nation as a whole, about 8,000 of them were boys and 9,000 were girls. Had they lived, 1,600 of them would have been left handed, nearly 4,000 of them Catholic, 2,300 Baptists, and more than 160 Episcopalians.

About 1,600 would have become teachers, more than 13,000 high school graduates and more than 3,500 college grads. Nearly 2,000 would have been executives, 1,600 in sales, and a little more than 2,000 would have been professionals.

These are woefully unscientific numbers, but illustrate the fact that these children were not the medical equivalent of amputated limbs or surgically discarded cartilage. Until abortion intervened, every one of them was alive in safety of their mother’s wombs and had beating hearts. Some of them were old enough that you could have seen whether they had grandpa’s dimple or momma’s nose. Where the comparison with the national population breaks down the most is with race. Because of the locations of the clinics where their abortions took place a disproportionate number of the children were minorities.

Yesterday, I paused to think about the children buried in the Odd Fellows cemetery. I try to drop by and visit their grave whenever I can. Not only to remember them but the more than 100 million other babies who like them have been the deprived of the opportunity to experience birth and life but who unlike them do not have a grave.

[Blogger]

America buries her future.

[Prime Choice]

America buries her future.

And it seems the future is returning the favor.

[G Larry]

"they couldn’t be buried with religious ceremony because that would be taking sides in the abortion debate."

Can you see the logic just flow from this decision?

I'm sure I've seen and heard of courts taking sides in murder cases before.

[manwiththehands]

The most dangerous place in America is a mother's womb.

[Past Your Eyes]

Praise God for the Odd Fellows and the ones who knew that this had to be done. How I long for the day when the practice of abortion and the mentality that allows it will be relegated to the ash heap of history where it belongs, along with slavery, child labor, torture and other unspeakable horrors.

[silverleaf]

interesting post

[TigersEye]

Abortion is not about saving women’s lives!

Total Abortions since 1973

45,951,133

------------------------------------------------------------

Why the drop after 1960? (in deaths of women from illegal abortions)

The reasons were new and better antibiotics, better surgery and the establishment of intensive care units in hospitals. This was in the face of a rising population. Between 1967 and 1970 sixteen states legalized abortion. In most it was limited, only for rape, incest and severe fetal handicap (life of mother was legal in all states). There were two big exceptions — California in 1967, and New York in 1970 allowed abortion on demand. Now look at the chart carefully.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Abortion Statistics - Decision to Have an Abortion (U.S.)

· 25.5% of women deciding to have an abortion want to postpone childbearing

· 21.3% of women cannot afford a baby

· 14.1% of women have a relationship issue or their partner does not want a child

· 12.2% of women are too young (their parents or others object to the pregnancy)

· 10.8% of women feel a child will disrupt their education or career

· 7.9% of women want no (more) children

· 3.3% of women have an abortion due to a risk to fetal health

2.8% of women have an abortion due to a risk to maternal health

----------------------------------------------------------------------

So how many women’s lives have been saved by abortion?

Only about 3% of abortions since 1972 were reported to be “due to a risk to maternal health.” A reasonable person would recognize that not all of those cases represent a lethal risk. But let’s say they did. That means that nearly 45 million fetuses were butchered to save the lives of about 1.3 million women. Or put another way; 35 babies are killed to save each woman.

Abortion was legal in all 50 states prior to Roe v. Wade in cases of danger to the life of the woman.

[Socratic]

This post is simultaneously uplifting and sorrowful. May the good never refrain from calling evil, evil.

[Renegade]

My youngest son was born in 1982. Really strikes the sad cord. HE enjoyed the sun on the East coast, and graduated from college as a mechanical engineer .We can only guess as to how many positive contributions to our country were negated by the option of abortion . Such a tragedy that this kind of killing of the innocent continues in the United States.

[lilylangtree]

My heart hurt when I read this.

[Fierce Allegiance]

Thanks for the tagline. I needed a new one.

[Guenevere]

Thank-you for remembering....and caring.

The day I became prolife was the day I saw a 4 month (gestational) baby who had been aborted and cast aside ....in a dumpster behind an abortuary.----I still remember how perfect & beautiful she was formed.--I also remember standing there crying and saying over and over....this is a baby

She was lovingly and carefully claimed & taken away by prolife folks who gave her the dignity and respect her little body deserved.

This is why I joined the Right to Life..organization shortly after....

Seeing this aborted baby was what turned my heart toward protection of our unborn.
The abortion industry, ie, NARAL, NOW, Planned Parenthood, etc. don't want YOU to know or see the result of abortion...

..because if you don't see it, you can still convince your mind....it isn't a baby....it's not a human being.

Our nation has the blood of over 40 million souls on its collective conscience.

[weegee]

One day abortion will be regarded with the same distaste as slavery and antisemitism but for now, the feelgood generation gets up in arms when anyone discusses doing away with it.

Why do some politicians feel the need to say they want it "safe, legal, and rare"? Why should it be rare if there is nothing wrong with it? Pretending the girl never got pregnant does no one any favors, most of all the child.

[exDemMom]

Your chart would be a lot more complete with the stats on girls who die from legal abortion every year. I would guess that the number more than makes up for the girls' lives saved who would otherwise have died from illegal abortions.

I'm calling them girls because a woman is mature and smart enough to avoid "unwanted" pregnancy and abortion in the first place.

[WVNan]

Yes, and the blood of those children cries out for justice. God notices.

[HereInTheHeartland]

"as the day I saw a 4 month (gestational) baby who had been aborted and cast aside"

Wow.
Abortion is truly an evil in this nation.
Once people hear what actually is done to a living human during an abortion, some see the truth.

[Tim Long]

Why would anyone want to save the life of a woman who would murder her child anyway? I've even read an essay whose author complains about the women becoming sterile!

[Tim Long]

Anyone who thinks something can be legal and rare is an idiot.

[Boazo]

[EverOnward]

precious baby bump (with sadness) -- how long can God tolerate the destruction of those most innocent?