College students clean fetus cemetery

Vietnam, November 8, 2011: Catholic students cleaned tombs of aborted fetuses on November 6 at the biggest such cemetery in Vietnam.

Some 250 Catholic students from colleges and universities in Hue City rode their bicycles 15 km to Ngoc Ho Cemetery for Aborted Fetuses in Huong Tra district to raise awareness for the respect of life.

They removed weeds from thousands of tombs, offered incense and planted flowers on them. They also attended a special Mass and prayed for aborted fetuses at the 5,000 square-meter cemetery.

“The visit aimed to create an opportunity for students to contemplate death and raise awareness of respect and prevention of life among them,” said Sacred Heart Brother Tran Sy Chung, one of the organizers.

Brother Chung said it also reminds students to pray for souls of aborted fetuses that are also human beings.

Martha Tran Thi Phuong, a student, said tombs have 30-40 aborted fetuses each, some as many as a hundred.

Phuong, 20, from Ha Tinh province, said many young people have premarital sex and are forced to have abortions.

“Those tombs remind me to respect life and avoid abortion, which is a crime against human beings,” she said.

A cemetery guard said the country’s biggest cemetery in terms of fetuses, erected by local Catholics in 1992, is home to 43,000 aborted fetuses that were collected from local state-run hospitals. Catholic volunteers collect 10-20 aborted fetuses a day, he added.

– ucan