Most Disturbing Item of the Week

BBC Reports:

Remains of 351 stillborn babies and foetuses have been found in the mortuary room of a well-known hospital in the French capital, Paris.

Some of the tiny bodies had been kept against regulations at St Vincent de Paul for up to 25 years and the government has ordered an inquiry.

Health Minister Xavier Bertrand said his ministry would try to find out why and how it had been allowed to happen.

All French maternity hospitals linked to mortuaries will also be checked.
....

The BBC's Caroline Wyatt reports from Paris that French commentators suspect similarities to the Alder Hey scandal in the British city of Liverpool.

Parents there discovered that the remains of their children had been kept by the hospital without their consent.

Of course a culture that doesn't respect life can't be expected to reverence the dead.

Read it here.

UPDATE:

K-lo over at NRO's Corner cites the NYT version of the story and highlights the concluding comment.

Dr. Guy-Marie Cousin, president of the National Union of Gynecologists and Obstetricians, was incensed at the public uproar. "Aside from eventual dysfunction that the investigation may turn up, I am astonished to see how astonished everyone is," he said. Research on fetuses, he told Le Monde, was "indispensable both for teaching and for research. Are we condemned to abandon it?"

Oh, don't worry, Dr. Guy, the trend among the compassionate--at least over here--these days seems to lean toward fetal farming, so it's all good.

Way to go, K-lo. Nice catch. This comment illuminates the deep disconnect between the moral values held by most Americans and those articulated by many spokesmen for the scientific community.

Read the NYT piece here.
K-lo's comment here.