Diocese offers to bury 17 unborn

There has been no response as yet to Bishop Howard J. Hubbard's offer to bury the bodies of 17 unborn children found in an abortion clinic in Colonie. Autopsies indicated that the children were between 11 and 17 weeks of gestation at the time of their deaths.

On Sept. 16, Colonie police removed the corpses from a freezer in American Women's Services, a clinic that was closed last May by the state Health Department for operating without a license.

Bishop Hubbard said that he heard the news "with great sadness. The fact that the remains of these unborn children were not properly disposed of is a further indication of the indifference to life that is promulgated by the practice of abortion. These unborn children were not only stripped of life but also left forgotten."

The Diocese contacted the New York State Commission of Health to offer interment for the unborn children at St. Agnes Cemetery in Menands or at the Sisters of St. Joseph Cemetery in Latham.

"It is our hope," Bishop Hubbard said, "that our offer will be accepted so that we may provide a dignified burial and internment for these unborn children."

As The Evangelist went to press, the Diocese had not heard a response to its offer.

The clinic is still being investigated, apparently for Medicaid fraud, by a grand jury. According to the Albany Times Union, the clinic was rented by a doctor whose medical license was revoked in 1994 because of an allegedly botched abortion. Another physician who performed abortions at the site spent 40 days in jail for contempt of court when he refused to turn over medical records to state investigators. After being released, he disappeared.

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