After watching a program on miscarriage, a question came to mind. If life begins at conception (as stated by many or most anti-abortionists) wouldn’t a one month old fetus be entitled to full burial customs (religious or otherwise) just as an adult or child would be?
My wife and I went through the ordeal of a miscarriage about a year ago. The thought of a service or a burial never occurred to us at the time. Opinions?
The Catholic take in the Code of Canon Law:
Can. 1183
§2 Children whose parents had intended to have them baptised but who died before baptism, may be allowed Church funeral rites by the local Ordinary.
There y’go.
I’m all for it. I’m Pro-Life, and I think that’s a great idea (although I must admit I never thought of it).
A miscarried fetus must be buried. However, no formal mouring rituals are observed for a fetus.
Zev Steinhardt
Thank you for the quick responses. ResIpsaLoquitor, your response on the Catholic issue was interesting. I was curious about the “baptism angle”.
Is this the “official” stance of most or all “Pro-Lifers”? It would seem hypocritical if it was otherwise. For the record, I am a “Pro-Choice” advocate.
Out of curiousity, why would only a “scaled down” version of a funeral be provided for a supposedly fully living member of your family who just died? Lack of familiarity? Aside from the Catholic response, what is the official position of the other religions?
FWIW some of my friends who are very pro-life had a miscarried still-birth and they had pretty much a full burial. They named the child, had a graveside service complete with coffin, etc… They are consistent in their beliefs. I respect them for this. We go to a “non-denominational” bible church (they do to).
(to me 'bible churches" are a denomination but that is another thread…)
My wife and I went through it twice; the pregancies went wrong at twenty weeks or so and she had to go through labour, delivering a small but fully-formed baby, but there was no sign of life in either case (in the second instance, we know that the foetus died in the womb and we followed the doctor’s advice to induce, but in the first case, nature took it’s own course).
Because it was before the 28 week watershed, the hospital was under no legal obligation to do anything other than dispose of the remains, however, they were very understanding and offered us the option of cremation or full burial; we chose the latter and the small informal service was organised by the minister at the church we regularly attend. I carried the little white coffins to the graveside myself. I can’t objectively say if it was a necessary part of the healing process or not, but I feel it was helpful, considering our personal beliefs.
We were wonderfully supported by the medical staff at every stage; they remembered us and were genuinely overjoyed when we returned in later years to successfully deliver the two children that you see here
For the record, there really isn’t much in the way of an ‘official stance’ in re. pro-life philosophy much as there isn’t one single monolithic party line for the pro-choice side. Therefore I feel allegations of hypocrisy would be unfounded.
I’m sorry for your loss, by the way.
(I should add, for the record, that I’m not particularly comfortable with the implications of either of the ‘pro~’ labels and do not wish to be associated with either of the extremes)
Interesting responses so far. Please allow me to elaborate my position a bit. (I will try to keep this as “sterile” as possible, so as not to offend ).
We had gone to the hospital previously for a standard ultrasound, and was informed by the specialist that our previously detected “baby” was no longer living. She was told to expect bleeding and tissue expulsion, which happened two nights later. We awoke to blood soaked sheets, and spent the entire night in the bathroom, trying to clean up the expelled blood and tissue, needless to say, it was one of the worst nights of our life. There was nothing there that even remotely resembled a baby (thank goodness). I did not have “feelling” for this mass of blood and tissue, only concern for my wife’s mental state. I cleaned as we went, using cloth and paper towels, and disposing of it . If I was to take the position of “at the moment of conception, we have a full blown life” I would had carefully and thoughtfully retain each shred of material cleaned up and used for cleaning as to retain the “sacred vessel” that once housed the “soul” of our now dead infant.
What I experienced that night, I truly doubt had ever been bequeathed a “soul”. It did have a heartbeat in the beginning (some people’s definitive perception of the beginning of life).
Of course we mourned our loss. Not the loss of this particular baby, but more of the dreams that a new pregnancy brings.
The last thing I would have wanted for my wife was to have the feeling that we somehow “violated some type of God’s law” by our handling of the situation. If we were to believe that life begins as the moment of conception, we would conversely have to believe that my handling of the “remains” was as monsterous as someone who, having had a stillborn child, thoughtlessly disposes of it in a landfill. The fact that there are people who are more than happy to tell me and everyone else who will listen, that life is “sacred” from the beginning moments, leads me to believe that these are the nonfeeling barbarians. I tried to handle the situation in the most delicate, loving way I possibly could.
To make my final point… Many folks lose a fetus in the beginning months, it is difficult but not insurmountable to deal with. A fetus is in no way comparable to a child who dies a week after birth and people who push this agenda are criminal and harmful in my mind.
Uh, sezyou, did you read Mangetout’s post above? In your own thread?
The opinion you express here, IMHO, is as self-centeredly judgmental as almost anything I’ve heard from the Pro-Life gang about how every abortion is a murder, etc.
It’s the death of a child, born or unborn, the end of a dream of what that person might have been.
Try again.
Ummmm…Catholic angle. We have a whole Code of Canon Law that covers various legal situations in the Church. Short of it is that a burial (far as I know) is always appropriate, but the full funeral rites, which includes a Mass with prayers for your speedy trip to heaven, is only given to those who they’re reasonably certain didn’t die in mortal sin. (That’s why John Gotti didn’t get one.)
The unbaptized infants CAN get a funeral because of their parents’ desire to have the sacrament done. It’s sort of a “by proxy” thing–you didn’t do it, but you were GOING to, so that’s good enough.
I’m not phrasing this right, so…um…consult your local library!
I just wanted to point out that some Asian immigrants here retain their cultural practise of creating shrines for pregnancies ended by miscarriage (and, I’ve been told, even by abortion).
Great feedback, I do want to apologize for some of my rather shitty thought processes. After rereading my “self-centered” self righteous tirade, I realize that in my nervousness of making my first thread, I brought some unprovoked anger with me. Dammit! I sounded just like one of those people I detest! I love this place. Next time more control, more polish and much more thought first. Peace
I think sezyou raises an interesting point, though. Many pregnancies end in miscarriage, and we become increasingly aware of this as sensitive pregnancy tests allow us to find out about pregnancies earlier than we used to. This may sound crass or gross, but the reality is, many miscarriages are not “stillbirths” that take place at a hospital–they are, instead, sudden fits of bleeding that result in stains and unidentifiable tissue. That doesn’t make them any less traumatic for the people who experience them, but it does seem that religious services and/or burials are very unusual for such cases.
So. I guess I took sezyou’s question to mean why isn’t it the norm to have services for such early miscarriages, particularly among those who believe strongly about when “life” begins?
You are being very harsh to someone who just shared his feelings about a very personal experience in an honest way. I don’t understand the contradiction between the two posts. Two people reacted differently to two different situations.
This is an interesting question that I’ve never heard brought up. How can anyone justify treating a fetus differently than a newborn if they claim a fetus is a full human being? If you really believed that, and weren’t just using it as a rhetorical device to push your agenda, funeral rites would be an automatic response.
No, they wouldn’t. Funeral rites have a lot to do with the socialisation of the deceased rather than with his humanity, even from a religious (well, Christian) perspective. I think most Christian denominations would agree that you can have funeral rites for a stillborn child, or a miscarried foetus, but it’s not necessary, and not very usual. What really matters is a respectful disposal of the remains, but this doesn’t require a funeral service or conventional “Christian burial”. And, in distressing circumstances such as those narrated by sezyou, there are no easily identifiable remains, and “respectful disposal” is not inconsistent with measures which are necessary for hygiene like throrough cleaning, the safe disposal of destroyed bedding, and so forth.
Sezyou says that he and his partner “mourned our loss. Not the loss of this particular baby, but more of the dreams that a new pregnancy brings.” But, if you think about it, this is exactly the loss which a conservative pro-life Christian would suffer and mourn in the same circumstances. Conventional Christian funeral rituals deal with the loss to the living community of one of its members, and with the transition of a member from the Church on earth to the Church in heaven. But an unborn child has never really formed part of the community of the Church on earth in the first place. This does not necessarily detract from the “humanity” which a pro-life person sees in the foetus.
One who is staunchly “pro-life” may be more likely than others to desire a regular funeral for his or her miscarried child, but I don’t think it’s an “automatic response”, and that those who don’t choose to have a funeral can fairly be accused of adopting a the view that a foetus is fully human as a “rhetorical device”.
Something I have always wondered about.
First - there is no right answer. I think a lot depends on the point at which the pregnancy terminates for most people.
In my case, I conceived lots of children (according to my doctor) but had an implantation problem. Would have seemed silly to me (being pro-choice and not believing life begins at conception) to have funerals with each visit from Aunt Flo. But I know infertile women who do go through some ritual each month to mourn the child that will not be.
I have a coworker who made it into the second trimester before miscarrying, and they named the baby and had a funeral. To them, it was a baby, and that is what is important.
Had Sezyou collected the sheets and towels and created a pyre, said a few words (or had a religious official say some words), that would have been understandable. What they did was also understandable.
I had a friend of a friend die in a cave diving accident. The body cannot be recovered without endangering the lives of other divers and is being left where it is. The family had a funeral without the body - it isn’t uncommon to do so when there is no body - so there is precedent for lack of identifiable remains. I don’t know if faiths that consider funerals a sacrement (like Catholicism) have a way to deal with last rites without a body.
Just a small technical correction – Catholics have seven sacraments, but funerals are not one of them.
It is common, but by no means essential, to celebrate a Eucharist (which is a sacrament) in connection with a funeral. This can certainly be done without a body.
It is also common to celebrate a Eucharist in memory of a dead person. I might arrange this, for instance, if someone close to me died in another country, and I was unable to attend the funeral. This is also commonly done on anniversaries, and so forth. Obviously, no body is necessary.
UDS, you are right. The sacrement is Last Rites, which is done before the funeral - and is supposed to be done before death (although, I believe it can be done after death). I don’t know how Catholics deal with Last Rites where there is no body.
Its been a long time since CCD for me.