The National Catholic Register is reporting that the city has refused offers made by both Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life and Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput to give the babies a proper burial.
Tasha Jameson, a spokeswoman for the Medical Examiner's Office said a decision about what to do with the remains will be left up to the medical examiner.
“Since they are not identified bodies, it will be up to the medical examiner to determine what will happen to those bodies,” Jameson said.
Typically, the medical examiner follows city statutes for the remains of unclaimed bodies by cremating and burying them.
City spokesman Mark McDonald told the Register that the medical examiner’s office is waiting until June 15 before following its procedures for disposing of unclaimed bodies. After this date, Gosnell will be unable to change his mind on a plea deal he made where he waived his right to appeal his murder convictions in order to avoid the death penalty.
Gosnell was convicted on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of infants killed after being born alive, and is currently serving three consecutive life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has tried on several occasions to get the remains from the city in order to give them a proper burial.
Archdiocesan spokesman Kenneth Gavin told the Register that they have already set aside a grave at All Souls Cemetery in Brandywine Township after having raised $8,000 from local parishes to erect a monument.
“All that money is right now being held in trust, and the space we picked out is certainly being held,” he said.
The burial, should it be permitted to take place, would "be something that would happen quietly, in a proper and dignified way,” Gavin told the Register.
Priests for Life founder Father Frank Pavone also requested permission to bury the bodies but was told by a faxed letter from Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Sam Gulino, that “after much discussion and legal consultation,” he had decided the victims’ remains “would not be released to any third-party organization.”
This response prompted a decision by Priests for Life to start a petition drive demanding to be allowed to bury the 47 victims of Gosnell's clinic.
Unlike the Archdiocese's plans to bury the remains quietly, Father Pavone wants a public burial, seeing this as a "step towards the healing of our entire nation from the trauma of abortion.”
Priests for Life is also calling for a National Day of Remembrance of Gosnell's tiny victims on September 14. Memorial services are planned at more than 30 grave sites throughout the country that are dedicated to babies killed by legal abortion in the United States.
“It is not enough to learn the atrocities of what goes on in the abortion industry," Father Pavone said.
"We have to start learning to publicly reverence the unborn, especially those killed by abortion. And the best way to do that is to give as many people in the public as possible the opportunity to reverence these children. Killed in secret, they must be honored in the broad light of day.”
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