I don't quite understand what you're trying to say, Ed. If you Google anti-abortion burial, you'll find that at least in the U.S., anti-abortion activists make a big deal of burying the remains of fetuses they can get their hands on. Whether they do it out of respect or for propaganda purposes, is a matter of debate. I suppose it's like the people who are appalled that a bishop and a nun would offer to contribute to building a memorial at Tuam. Who has the propaganda rights to these remains?

Dealing with old graveyards brings up all sorts of questions. I live in the Sierra Nevada foothills, in the heart of the 1849 Gold Rush. There are old graveyards everywhere in this area, and most of them don't meet modern standards. I told you above about the overgrown graveyard next door to me on the grounds of a former state tuberculosis sanatorium. Two ridges south of me is the Greenwood Cemetery where the remains of Gold Rush songwriter John A. Stone are buried [he called himself "Old Put," but the gravestone calls him Joe Bowers]. My Catholic parish held title to an unregulated cemetery in the Gold Rush town of Foresthill, and I was on the parish council when we were tasked with the job of bringing the cemetery up to code. The Catholic church in Foresthill burned down in about 1950, I think. For years thereafter, people of all faiths in the community continued to bury their dead in the church graveyard, often without recording the burials and sometimes without asking permission. I think we finally ended up deeding the cemetery over to the county.

So, a ten-year-old kid found 20 skeletons in Tuam in 1975. It will certainly be interesting to watch as the truth of this story unfolds. Sure will be hard to sort the truth from the speculation, though.

-Joe-