800 Dead Babies found in septic tank at former home for unwed mothers

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

I saw and snagged this from ontd_political. By the way, this is going to piss you off.

In a town in western Ireland, where castle ruins pepper green landscapes, there's a six-foot stone wall that once surrounded a place called the Home. Between 1925 and 1961, thousands of "fallen women" and their "illegitimate" children passed through the Home, run by the Bon Secours nuns in Tuam.

Many of the women, after paying a penance of indentured servitude for their out-of-wedlock pregnancy, left the Home for work and lives in other parts of Ireland and beyond. Some of their children were not so fortunate.

More than five decades after the Home was closed and destroyed — where a housing development and children's playground now stands — what happened to nearly 800 of those abandoned children has now emerged: Their bodies were piled into a massive septic tank sitting in the back of the structure and forgotten, with neither gravestones nor coffins.

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Very belated on PCM: Irish abortion bill becomes law

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

This apparently happened last year, but I just came acrossed it when I was looking up abortion laws in Ireland pertaining to what I read that was related to the last entry.

Remember how I mentioned the death of Savita Halappanavar nearly two years ago on here? Well, that story had sparked a huge debate in Ireland over abortion. I'm happy to say it has lead to this (although I had been confuzzled because I thought abortion was already legal there in the case to save a woman's life if it was threatened until I re-read the the aboriton law of Ireland again and read that health was not involve in that exception).

Abortions under limited circumstances will be allowed in the Republic of Ireland under a new law.

The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act will allow terminations to be carried out where there is a threat to the life of the mother.

It will also be allowed where there is medical consensus that the expectant mother will take her own life over her pregnancy.

Irish President Michael D Higgins signed the bill into law on Tuesday.

He decided not to refer the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill to the Supreme Court.

( More from the article )