Note (6/23/14): As promised, I have kept tabs on this issue. The blog posting that appeared to be the source of much of the furor has been deleted, but KOIN (a television station in Portland) did air a news article citing the allegations, which were originally made in the magazine “BC Catholic.”
Snopes.com has posted an article summarizing their own investigation into the issue. In summary, officials reacted quickly to the allegations: the incinerator facility in Oregon will not accept further shipments of medical waste until they are assured that aborted fetuses were not part of the waste stream, as is being alleged (but which has not been proven to be the case).
At the moment, there is an article out on the internet that is going viral, entitled “Aborted babies are being incinerated to provide electricity in the United States“.
If true, this would be quite a problem, as I believe that the irreverent disposal of human remains (as is claimed here) is illegal in most of the US.
Further, I cannot find any facts to back up the assertion that this is (or was) being done. The story seems to originate with the above-mentioned blog posting. There are a lot of references that it and other sources cite; however, when you try to trace the links – all of them lead back to the blog I’ve linked-to above. I also noted that all of the online articles misspell “British Columbia” the Canadian province as “British Colombia” – Colombia is in South America. So, they are all almost certainly relying on a single source, and doing “copy and paste republishing” without verifying the facts – very poor journalism, let alone ethics!
Another thing that troubles me about this whole issue is the leaps in terminology that are being made – starting with “medical waste” then leaping to “fetal remains” and finally “aborted babies” – i.e., the words have become more incendiary; but I can find no facts to justify the changes in language.
Finally, the British Columbia Ministry of Health (which is the correct name, not “British Colombia Health Ministry”) has not responded to this claim at all (as of this posting), nor has any other government body within Canada, nor (as far as I can tell) any government body or hospital in the US.
So, whether this claim is true or not, there is nothing to back it up as of yet, and the many pro-life sites that are trumpeting this as a huge crime are employing language that is becoming more and more heated – even though there is nothing to substantiate anything that they are saying.
All I’m suggesting is that we learn the facts before we risk unjustly accusing someone, or make ourselves look silly by coming down so vehemently against a situation that more than likely bears no resemblance to the way it has been presented in the media (so far).
I will keep tabs on this issue, and will update this blog post as new information becomes available.
The Here and the Hereafter 