Women in the Tien Du district of Northern Vietnam are giving their time to support pregnant women and provide dignified burials to babies who have died as a result of abortion or miscarriage.
Working around the clock in all weathers, the women volunteers often travel 60 miles from their homes to visit pregnant mothers who need their help.
Mary Pham Thi Hoai, one of the members, said: “We wish all women who have unwanted pregnancies, run into financial difficulties in giving birth and even have babies die for any reason, to contact us and get our help. We never hesitate about challenges but are at their service around the clock.”
Hoai recounted a time when she was awoken early one winter morning by a call from a doctor who asked her to collect the body and arrange the burial of an aborted baby. The hospital was a 30-minute motorcycle ride away.
“My heart was broken, and my eyes were blinded by burning tears, so that I could not bathe and dress the months-old baby, whose sad eyes seemed to look at me and mouth seemed to call me.”
The church cemetery, which the volunteers use, has become the last resting place of 12,000 babies since the first was buried five years ago.
“How we treat human beings in death reflects profoundly on how we treat them in life”
SPUC’s Michael Robinson said: “Some semblance of the attitude towards the unborn in Vietnam can be grasped in the shocking fact that 40 per cent of all pregnancies in Vietnam end in abortion.
“But inspirational women are working hard for change and, at the very least, preserving the humanity of unborn children.
“Such worthy work should alert the world to the truth that unborn children are not medical waste.
“The unwillingness of abortionists and the society in which they operate to provide the victims of abortion with proper burials goes hand in hand with the anti-life view that the unborn are not fully human.
“While the dignified burial of an unborn child might seem like a futile gesture, it is at least a starting point in the fightback on their behalf.
“How we treat human beings in death reflects profoundly on how we treat them in life.”