![[IMAGE]](corp6.gif)
![[IMAGE]](cy_bar.gif){kind=small}
These letters are in response to a letter from Mr. George Quarre found in this Feedback page
.
The following was written by my husband, a practicing Catholic and a registered nurse. He is also a candidate for the oblature of the Camaldolese branch of the Order of St. Benedict. (For those of you who are unfamiliar with Catholic religious orders, that means he's trying out to be a lay member of this order of monks.)
Okay, let's go back to the first sentence, which is a key. A miscarriage happens without knowledge. The mother doesn't know a miscarriage has taken place. Thus, she doesn't know a life has been lost, right? Why would she have a ceremony for the loss of a life if she doesn't know it's been lost?
As for what happens to the soul of an unborn child, well, what happens to any soul? Is it dependent on who knows the soul to begin with? Of course not. God knows every soul, and it is God who calls souls back to heaven. It doesn't matter whether other humans knew the soul or not.
"Some miscarriages occur in a Catholic hospital while the prospective mother is under the care of a Catholic doctor. These are medically impossible to stop. The same questions occur as above. How is the fetal material disposed of and why is there no ceremony after the procedure?
Here, you are assuming that there is no ceremony. My niece-in-law had a stillbirth about a year ago. A funeral date was announced and our family was aware of it. (They live several hundred miles away, so we did not attend except in spirit.) There was a body and, as far as I know, it was buried -- but is burial necessary to constitute a ceremony to honor a person's soul? Not that I know about.
Often in cases of early miscarriage, there is no body to bury. There is a positive pregnancy test and then a lot of bleeding. And in many cases, a great deal of misery because of that. And frequently no public sympathy because there is no body to bury. So you mourn silently, and when services are offered for the soul of those who have died, you remember your child, if you can stand it.
We lost our first child at seven weeks. At least, we think we did. There was a positive pregnancy test and then a lot of bleeding. There was never anything else, no evidence that anyone had been there at all. It would have been easier to get over, I think, if there had been. It is hard to mourn completely for a person you can never be sure even existed.
We have four healthy children now, whom we would not have had if the first miscarriage had not happened. So everything went as God willed for us. And when we're finished on earth, we'll get an answer to that question.
Jonathan Hunter-Kilmer, R.N., OSB Cam Obl. Cand.
Another question posed:
"Rape: It's bad enough for a mature person to become pregnant after a rape, but what about a girl under the age of 12? Is there any case where a therapeutic procedure could be acceptable?
It is tough, it is heart-rending, I feel for the mother and baby and everybody involved. But a baby is a baby is a baby. A rapist's baby is still a baby. If it was too hard on the young mother to raise the child, she could release the baby for adoption. There is no shortage of loving homes out there, as we all know.
The poor girl's home situation is probably awful, if she's pregnant at that age, and it will be hard for her young body to give birth. But that is no reason to kill a baby. We have to do whatever we can as pro-lifers to help the tough cases.
Melissa Hunter-Kilmer
My fiance was a nurse on an OB unit in Ohio, and told me what they did with miscarriages. There was a lady who made clothes for these children who were usually no bigger than a small ormedium size doll. As a side note to this, she also told me that these small children, some only 4-6 weeks (if I remember correctly), had fingers, toes (with little outlines of fingernails), eyes, mouths, arms with little elbows, legs with little knees....the whole nine yards. Anyways, she, or any nurse who was attending the patient would deliver the miscarriage, allow the mother to hold it briefly, just like after a live birth. Then they would take the child to a room where they would clean it up, give it a bath, and dress it in these tiny clothes. They would take footprints, handprints, and a picture, and then an attending doctor would fill out a death certificate (I think the death certificate only pertained to certain aged children).
After this they would bring the child in to the mother, and allow the mother to hold the child. This all helped the mother begin, and go through, the grieving process. Afterwards they would follow the direction of the mother as far as burial rights etc. The whole process focused towards the fact that the child was a living human who had died. When my fiance, Lisa, described it to me I thought it was a beautiful way to care for a mother who had experienced something so traumatic, as well as to respect ALL life. Believe it or not this was a state hospital.
God Bless you - hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving!
Sincerely,
Jason Torgerson
This site will be an informal method for you to express your concerns, relay information to us and have your messages or letters to Children of the Rosary posted. If you wish to be one of the letters or messages up on the board, simply go to our Send Us Feedback page and type out a note.