"Killing Fields"

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters)-- Officials in Pennsylvania are investigating the discovery of some 400 unborn children found in a garage that once belonged to a funeral home director under contract with a local hospital to cremate them.

If they weren't people, why must they be cremated?

Most of them were preserved in embalming fluid inside plastic contaners that were labeled, and officials plan to notify the hospital patients involved, once all the remains have been identified, officials said.

If they weren't living beings, why are there 'remains'?

Most of them were less than 16 weeks old, the point below which an unborn child is treated as a "surgical specimen" and is not legally required to be reported to the police or coroner, said Dr. Cyric Wecht, coroner for Allegheny County.

Would a funeral home director feel driven to embalm and preserve 'surgical specimens'?

We have another word for that.

As reported in The Washington Times, August 31, 2005.