On December 21st a pregnant Kalynn Moore, 26, of Jersey City went to the hospital. The doctors there discovered that her baby’s heart rate was dangerously low. They performed an emergency Caesarean birth. The doctors worked vigorously for twenty minutes to stabilize young Bashere Davon Moyd Jr, but alas they could not save him.
They wrapped Bashere in a blanket and put a hat on his little head. Mom held him for a half an hour before they took his body away to the hospital morgue.
Bashere’s parents contacted a funeral home so they could properly say goodbye to their son who lived such a brief time. When the funeral home arrived at the hospital to pick up Bashere’s body, the hospital said he is not here. We threw his body out in the trash.
The parents are understandably devastated. The hospital says that while it regrets the action but states that the baby was stillborn and thus not a person, so he went in the trash can. The parents deny that the child was stillborn. Either way, this is just the latest evidence of how much we have devalued life. Stillborn or not, the baby was alive just moments ago. But the obvious does not matter in the eyes of NJ law.
[NJ.com] It became evident the body had been discarded and the trash already was gone, Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio said.
DeFazio said his office is looking into the matter but that at this point there does not appear to be any criminal intent on the part of the employee who apparently discarded Bashere’s body.
…
DeFazio said if a baby’s death is an attended stillborn — meaning doctors are present — there normally would not be an autopsy. He noted a stillborn baby is not considered a person under New Jersey law, but an autopsy could “perhaps” determine whether Bashere had lived for some period of time.
That definition of person gets narrower every day. The hospital is insisting that the baby was stillborn in order to cover its tracks and limit its legal liability. Perhaps it was stillborn, I don’t know. Either way, it is evidence of how insensitive and apathetic our culture is toward life.
When we can wrap a deceased baby in a blanket and put a cap on his head. Then turn around and throw the body in the garbage because under law it is not a person, this culture is very sick.
The Jersey City police are earnestly trying to find the body in the landfill. I hope they find him so that he can be buried with the respect he deserves.
Many thanks to Helen Rivera for the link to this sad story.
January 7, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Great jumping Judas what is wrong with some people? If he’s not a person why give him a blanket and cap and let his grieving parents say goodbye? And even stillborn, how is this not simply a DEAD person who deserves a dignified burial?
They should sack whomever did this. Maybe after Ms. Moore sues them and owns the hospital, she can have the satisfaction of firing the shmoe personally.
January 7, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Argh! Stillborn or not, this child deserved to be treated with dignity. I can’t believe they didn’t even ask the parents what they would like to do with their baby.
5 years ago we lost a child at 18 weeks in utero. We asked to take him home with us, as we had arranged for a burial with our parish priest in our parish cemetery. The hospital staff was shocked and claimed no one had ever requested such a thing before. I now wonder what they might have done with our child if we had not asked to take him home.
January 7, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Sounds like the hospital screwed up royally and is now interested only in minimizing its legal liability in this very sad situation. In any case, their actions were despicable, even if it was legal.
My nephew was stillborn at nine months and his devastated parents had a funeral Mass and burial for him. The hospital was not Catholic, and even (sadly) performs abortions, but my sister’s wishes were honored and never questioned. She received full support from the hospital staff.
I can’t imagine how this boy’s parents must feel.
January 7, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Something is clearly wrong with the hospital staff. I worked in a hospital lab as a tech years ago. In the evening after the Pathology dept went home, we were responsible for keeping the morgue and it’s records. I personally have had to collect stillborn babies from their grieving mothers–a terribly sad site. No one I ever worked with would have dared toss a baby’s body out with the trash. What a horrible act. Is this what we have become?
January 7, 2009 at 5:17 pm
About 18 months ago there was a bit of an upset here (rural town, South African) when two dead babies were found in the local rubbish dump, complete with hospital arm bands. They didn’t even get given the dignity of being incinerated with medical waste. (What happens to medical waste is another story.)
January 7, 2009 at 5:33 pm
When the doctors worked on him for 20 minutes, it wasn’t because they were sure he was dead! When they gave up, they said, call it, time of death, XX:XX. So he can’t be legally a stillborn, which is a baby who never drew a breath. While they were working on him they assuredly ventilated him, so his lungs had air in them. QED, not stillborn.
Not that they should throw stillborn babies in the trash either. Obviously the abortion mentality has crept up to include newborns.
Susan Peterson
January 7, 2009 at 5:51 pm
I wonder what future civilizations will say about ours when they find the bones of so many infants in our landfills. Will they talk about our culture’s rampant “infant acrifice”? Will they try to fit this sacrifice into a “religion” that we practiced”? Just another form of human sacrifice like infant exposure of the Romans and human sacrifice of the Mayans and Incans. How utterly barbaric and pagan of us. No doubt those future archeologists will congratulate themselves on having progressed beyond such a barbaric and primitive past. (We hope)
January 7, 2009 at 5:56 pm
We’ve got a heck of a fight on our hands here in Madison, Wisconsin.
Please check out the link I’m pasting below and keep us in your prayers:
http://40daysforlifemadison.blogspot.com/
January 7, 2009 at 6:10 pm
New Jersey. Not surprised. Not. At. All.
January 7, 2009 at 6:13 pm
When we lost our baby at 10 weeks, the nurses in the ER acted like I was insane for wanting to bury him. Fortunately, his body passed at home, so we were able to give him a Catholic burial.
But hospital staff don’t seem to know how to deal with someone who’s losing a baby— They really do think it’s crazy to want to bury your child.
It’s proof we live in a sick, sick, world.
January 7, 2009 at 6:17 pm
The name of the hospital is Christ Hospital? I think they may take a look at why they were founded in the first place.
The logic involved here is all over the map:
“He noted a stillborn baby is not considered a person under New Jersey law…”
A dead body (nomatter what the means of death) is not considered a person under NJ law. Why doesn’t N.J. just put all the dead bodies in the state in a garbage heap? What difference does it matter how a person died or whether they have rights under N.J. law? That has no bearing on the respect owed to the body of a dead human.
And If the baby wasn’t a person why was he in the morgue in the first place? We don’t send organs and body parts that are removed in surgery to the morgue. Only dead people go to the morgue – obviously someone thought he was a person to send his body there.
“…but an autopsy could “perhaps” determine whether Bashere had lived for some period of time.”
So this baby had a shallow heartbeat which doctors spent 20 minutes trying to stabilize. How incompetent does DeFazio have to be to not know that a baby with a heartbeat lived for some period of time. Even if the baby had no heartbeat when his mother came into the hospital, does DeFazio think he just appeared magically in his mother’s womb one day. Of course he was alive for some time.
January 7, 2009 at 7:28 pm
The baby went to the morgue. They had no more right to dispose of the body than they would to dispose of any other body that ended up at the morgue, whether a day old, ten or fifty. This is horrible. So sad. 🙁
~Zee
January 7, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Unfortunately, it looks like it may be too late. Investigators think the baby may have been incinerated at a Kentucky waste management facility. The sorry story is here: http://www.nj.com/news/jjournal/jerseycity/index.ssf?/base/news-7/1231313135325420.xml&coll=3
January 7, 2009 at 7:59 pm
I’m sorry to hear that it may be too late to pay proper respect to the body of this little child of God! Perhaps we — and the devastated family — can take some comfort that the child’s soul is in some way safe with the all-powerful God and is no longer suffering, through God’s Mercy!
My special prayers are raised for the parents, who now must not only mourn the loss of their baby, but must also mourn the baby’s treatment as garbage! How that must hurt them! May God grant them peace!
January 7, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Appalling. Absolutely appalling. I have no words to describe my reaction to this story.
January 7, 2009 at 9:13 pm
So if the baby’s “not a person” then what did the doctors work on for 20 minutes.
I’d like to see how they billed either the insurance company or state: “Tried to turn a lump of tissue into a person, but failed”?
What raving idiots.
January 8, 2009 at 1:38 am
Jessie you ask what future generations will think of us. They wont think anything about us. With each generation that passed by the definition of life gets worse and worse. Im guessing future generations will wonder why so few babies were killed off. they will wonder why we allowed so many babies with genetic abnormalities to live etc etc.
I feel really sorry for the parents. I wish someone sues the pants off the hospital and the people who messed up, but i know that that will not happen.
As a catholic instead of 20 minutes of procedures would it not be better to have a priest present to baptize the baby first if it is known that the baby would not live long.
Would such a thing even be allowed in a Western hospital that a priest baptize first before any medical intervention after all the soul is more important.
January 8, 2009 at 2:51 am
I. Am. Speechless.
January 9, 2009 at 1:32 am
This is simply stunning.
Smiley,
Yes, if the parent(s) request it, the baby can be baptized first. The parent, doctor, nurse, or whoever can do it. It should only take a few moments. I have always told my doctor / midwife that in danger of death I want my baby baptized and all have been fine with that.
However, the baby’s name sounds Jewish to me ….
Anonymous,
Love your comment on how they must’ve billed insurance.
January 9, 2009 at 2:35 am
Thanks Science Mom.
I guess one can use a prayer for baptism that one gets fom the church in using the Name of the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit and some holy water.
Thats nice to know . I should file this in my mind for emergencies.