Prayer Service Held For "Gosnell Babies" At Laurel Hill Cemetery
By Paul Kurtz
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Anti-abortion groups held a prayer service Wednesday at Laurel Hill Cemetery in East Falls for the so-called "Gosnell babies."
Flowers and homemade wooden crosses were placed at the final resting place for the cremated remains of nearly 50 fetuses found in the West Philadelphia clinic of the infamous abortion doctor, Kermit Gosnell. It was a solemn ceremony, but clergy members also had some fire and brimstone reserved for the City of Philadelphia.
"It is deeply troubling, the whole Gosnell affair," Reverend Patrich Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition told the crowd, "from the tragic, horrific situation in which these children died to how the mothers were treated, to not making this a more public affair."
In the aftermath of Gosnell's 2013 murder trial, anti-abortion activists made numerous attempts to have the city release the remains for burial but were turned down.
The Medical Examiners office says it was simply following standard procedure; all unclaimed remains are cremated and quietly buried at Laurel Hill.
