Pro-Life Groups Protest, Want to Bury “Gosnell Babies”

NewsBusters, a right-wing site, reports on efforts to pressure the Philadelphia Medical Examiners Office to release dead fetuses seized from Kermit Gosnell’s abortion clinic.  The office is reportedly withholding the bodies from third parties, but pro-life groups want to provide a formal burial.

On Friday, July 19, several pro-life leaders demanded justice and burial for the bodies of 45 babies found in convicted murderer Kermit Gosnell’s Philadelphia abortion clinic. They organized a prayer vigil outside the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office, and promised to risk arrest when the office barred its doors to their inquiries.

The speakers, including Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, Students for Life’s Kristan Hawkins, Christian Defense Coalition’s Rev. Patrick Mahoney, Stand True Ministries’ Bryan Kemper, and Alliance Defending Freedom’s Catherine Foster, endured the sweltering heat to deliver a letter requesting information about the remains. The Medical Examiner’s Office, which agreed to meet with them just hours before, locked its doors and called the police as they approached.

Fr. Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, stressed to the MRC that the Medical Examiner’s Office responded twice when he previously requested the babies’ remains. While the office first considered his appeal, it later decided to withhold the bodies from all third parties – without explanation.

“Meanwhile,” said Pavone, “we’re doing two things: we’re asking ‘Why not?’ and, ‘What do you intend to do with these bodies?’ The public has the right to know where these bodies are, what’s going to be done with them.”

Now, the groups say, they are planning a “national call” for pro-life allies to come to Philadelphia and pray outside the examiner’s office, invoking “civil rights imagery.” No information on when such a protest might materialize.