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Open-casket funeral held in uptown Charlotte

CHARLOTTE — A dead baby girl lay naked in a tiny white coffin July 27 on the square at the corner of Trade and Tryon streets. It was an open-casket funeral meant as a shocking statement about the ultimate evil of abortion.

Witnessed by about 150 people, the outdoor funeral and demonstration at Independence Square capped a week-long anti-abortion campaign in Charlotte ahead of the Democratic National Convention.

For protest organizers, displaying the baby's remains at the sidewalk demonstration conveyed a stronger message than any photos or pamphlets ever could. But the event was like nothing local Catholic pro-life leaders had done before, and no local pro-life leaders attended.

The service was led by national pro-life advocate Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life, who flew in from his home in Texas to participate.

The overall anti-abortion protest campaign was organized by Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, based out of Concord, N.C. The group identifies itself as a Christian movement dedicated to ending abortion, a "holocaust presently ravaging our nation," according to its website. It is not affiliated with the Catholic Church, and other than Father Pavone, no Catholic clergy or pro-life ministry leaders participated in the demonstration.

Organizers said the campaign, conducted at several sites around the city July 21-28, was designed to shock passersby with the naked truth about the violence of abortion – depicted on signs featuring explicit and often bloody photos of aborted babies.

"America will not reject abortion until America sees abortion," Father Pavone remarked during the funeral.

Besides Independence Square, protestors went to Charlotte's three abortion facilities, a local Christian church and Presbyterian Hospital. Protests were also held at the homes and offices of known abortionists, an organizer said.

'BABY CHOICE'

Protestors said "Baby Choice" was a victim of a second-trimester saline abortion, in which a salt solution is injected into the mother's womb to slowly poison the fetus. The body of the intact Caucasian fetus, at 20-22 weeks' gestation, was covered with black spots where the salt solution burned off the top layer of her skin.

The only information that Father Pavone disclosed about the baby, dubbed "Baby Choice," was that he had acquired her from outside North Carolina and brought her to town so that her funeral could coincide with the demonstration.

"The baby whom we honored last week was entrusted to a colleague of mine, who came to me to ask if we could arrange for burial. When I told this colleague that there would be a memorial service held by Operation Save America, and that I would be speaking at it, she arranged to entrust the body to us for this service," Father Pavone said in an email Tuesday, adding, "Many of the public events like Operation Save America holds involve memorial services. There may or may not be a baby to bury. Different babies, at different times, have been made available, and we have subsequently had burials for them."

"Baby Choice" has been the name given to various fetal remains obtained and displayed by anti-abortion groups including Americans Against Abortion, Operation Rescue/Operation Save America and Priests for Life over the past three decades.

The first "Baby Choice" appeared in 1985, and is similar to the baby memorialized in Charlotte last week: a girl at the same gestational age, who died from the same abortion procedure, featuring similar black burn marks on the skin.

Father Pavone said the baby in Charlotte was not the original 1985 "Baby Choice."

In a July 26 release from Priests for Life, he noted, "It is not often that we have the bodies of aborted babies. Unfortunately, the act by which their lives are dishonored and their bodies dismembered takes those bodies and discards them with the medical waste.

"But once in a while, we are able to retrieve these bodies. When we do so, we give them the honor that others have denied them. The act of violence that killed them is done in secret; we believe that the act of reparation that honors them should be done in public. The cold-hearted killing was done in darkness; the broken-hearted mourning should be done in the bright light of day."

However, two Operation Rescue/Operation Save America members described the baby as not being recently deceased, saying they have used her in similar demonstrations elsewhere.

Organizers insisted that they treat the baby's remains with dignity and respect as part of their fight to end abortion.

Dr. Patricia McEwen – whom the Priests for Life office referred inquires to about "Baby Choice" and now serves with Operation Save America, Life Coalition International and Doctors for Life International – said she first met "Baby Choice" in 1991, and that the baby regularly travels around the country in anti-abortion demonstrations. The baby is the victim of "a very old saline abortion," McEwen said, and is kept in formaldehyde when not being used in demonstrations.

"We've gotten attached to this little one. She's the evidence of our sins, of our crimes against the little ones," said evangelist Rusty Lee Thomas of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, who said he once carried "Baby Choice" on a six-month walk across in America in 2004.

"It's not like we want to exploit her or anything like that. Even though 'Baby Choice' is dead, she still speaks. We need to weep and mourn and grieve, and 'Baby Choice' helps in that process," Thomas said.

Church regulations issued by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1987, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), state that fetal remains – whether fully developed or not, whether aborted or not – "must be respected just as the remains of other human beings." That includes timely and reverent burial or cremation, and forbids any "commercial trafficking." "Furthermore, the moral requirements must be safeguarded that there be no complicity in deliberate abortion and that the risk of scandal be avoided."

THE 'FUNERAL'

At the funeral, the baby's casket was carried in a procession past St. Peter Catholic Church, accompanied by a bagpiper and people carrying flags that read "Justice for the Unborn," to Independence Square. There, signs and banners vividly depicted the horrors of abortion.

It was a Friday morning workday, and people walking by the scene briefly showed interest but only a few took the anti-abortion flyers being handed out by protestors.

Pastor Flip Benham of Concord, national director of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, was the main speaker. Grasping a Bible in one hand and speech notes in the other, Benham spoke emotionally about the tragedy of abortion and the need for repentance from Jesus Christ.

"We come, we remember, we mourn, and we recommit ourselves every moment of our lives, every ounce of our energy, to ending this disaster," he preached. "Nobody's going to deter us from our path."

Father Pavone then stepped forward to speak.

"We all know what it's like to get involved in the arguments and the debates, don't we? We know the things that will be said back and forth," he began in his trademark booming voice, acknowledging that some people might label the protest as "radical" and the people gathered as "kooks" or "nuts."

"But, brothers and sisters, what we are doing today cuts through all of that, doesn't it? This is in some ways the most important thing that the people of life do to advance the cause of life – what we are doing right here, right now, in the presence of this baby.

"This is not an issue or a debate. We will win the fight for life as soon as we take this whole controversy down from the abstract levels in which it is often conducted, out of the arena of slogans, even out of the arena of intellectual debate, and focus in on one simple fact:

"This is a person! This is a baby! This is a human being! And this is what the fight is all about: this person!"

At the end of the gathering, people processed past the open casket where "Baby Choice" lay, placing carnations next to the little coffin. Many were visibly shaken.

Tom Raddel, a Catholic from Cleveland, Ohio, brought his 17-year-old son Chris to the protest. Raddel noted that people from all over the country – from many different faiths and including young people and entire families – had come to Charlotte to take part. Their goal: changing hearts, saving lives, and seeking repentance for the sin of abortion, he said.

BURIAL ARRANGED

Father Pavone said he buried "Baby Choice" on July 29 in Staten Island, N.Y., where Priests for Life is headquartered, in a plot that the organization has reserved.

"We have a number of plots here, including at Resurrection Cemetery, which is our Catholic cemetery, and the funeral director with whom we work in these cases does a private burial in the next available space," he noted.

One of the Operation Rescue/Operation Save America protest organizers said he did not know beforehand of plans to lay the baby to rest and said that a symbol such as "Baby Choice" remains important to their cause.

"There's something about coming face to face with" the reality of abortion, said Thomas. "It touched a lot of people's hearts – and that's what it's all about."

Maggi Nadol, director of the Diocese of Charlotte's Respect for Life Office, did not attend the demonstration, and there were no other local pro-life leaders visibly present. On Tuesday, Nadol said, "Respect for Life calls us to treat the human body with dignity."

Nadol said she could understand a situation where an open casket was used in a service for an unborn child once. But she expressed concerned about it. "If the body is being used as a tool to bring people together, that is deceit."

DNC PROTEST

The funeral demonstration capped a week of protests in uptown Charlotte July 21-28 by members of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America that was billed as an "invasion" of the Queen City in advance of the Democratic National Convention in September:

The funeral demonstration capped a week of protests in uptown Charlotte July 21-28 by members of Operation Rescue/Operation Save America that was billed as an "invasion" of the Queen City in advance of the Democratic National Convention in September:

"The DNC is coming to Charlotte, bringing its 'culture of death'!" Operation Rescue/Operation Save America's July 26 press release stated. "When the devil throws a party, like this Democratic party, it is imperative that the church show up. Operation Save America is bringing King Jesus to the Queen City, Charlotte, to raise up a standard in preparation for the DNC's invasion."

Operation Rescue/Operation Save America held similar campaigns in Charlotte in 2010 and 2003, according to its website.

— Patricia L. Guilfoyle and SueAnn Howell, Catholic News Herald

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