Fetuses at Center of Controversy to Be Buried Oct. 6 in East L.A.

A three-year controversy over the interment of 16,500 fetuses found in a steel storage bin in Woodland Hills took another step toward a conclusion Friday when an attorney for a Los Angeles mortuary announced that the fetuses would be buried Oct. 6 at the Odd Fellows Cemetery.

The dispute, including a lengthy legal battle, revolved around the contention by anti-abortion advocates that the fetuses were “people” and deserved a religious burial. A court order last month said the burial must be non-religious, but attorney Jack Schuler said Friday that no effort will be made to stop private groups from conducting ceremonies at the East Los Angeles grave site. Schuler represents the Guerra-Gutierrez-Alexander Mortuary, on East Beverly Boulevard.

Pro-life activists have said they plan to hold religious services. Pro-choice groups have criticized the burial, with the spokeswoman for one calling it an “attack on women’s right to have an abortion.” The county Board of Supervisors voted in August to send the fetuses to Guerra-Gutierrez, which was to locate a non-sectarian cemetery for burial.

The fetuses are stored at the mortuary in the six pine coffins in which they are to be buried. The mortuary will deliver the coffins to the cemetery for burial in unmarked graves, Schuler said.

‘Rather Unique’

“This is a rather unique event,” Schuler said. “What normally happens is that there are services held there at the grave site and the family will linger and then the casket will be lowered.”

Here, he explained, there is no official service and no family, but the coffins will be kept above the ground for a “reasonable period” of time.

Susie Carpenter McMillan, a spokeswoman for Feminists for Life, an anti-abortion group, said group members would pray at the grave site during this time but said her group did not plan a full memorial service because one was held for the fetuses in May. However, another group, Americans Committed to Loving the Unwanted, said it would hold a service.