News

By Hilary White
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  HO CHI MINH CITY/HUÊ, June 26, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Abortion is running rampant in Vietnam. Recent statistics have shown that as many as 74,264 children were killed by abortion in Ho Chi Minh City alone inÂthe first nine months of 2005. The problem has become so serious that a public conference, attended by almost 1000 people, was held in Ho Chi Minh City in February 2006 on the issue.
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  Fr Joseph, one of the organizers, said that it’s“necessary to put in place programmes to protect human life and to push back the culture of death in Vietnamese society, preventing social ills such as sexual abuse against children, and abortion.”
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  One participant told AsiaNews, “Through the forum I have realized the negative influence of social ills on everyone in the parish, so I have determined to do my best to protect my family, and primarily myself, from a culture of death.”
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  As part of the response to this growing culture of death, a group of Catholic volunteers in Huê, the former capital city of Vietnam, has established a cemetery for infants killed by abortion. Set up in 1992, the cemetery now contains the remains of 30,000 foetuses.
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  According to AsiaNews, the creators of the cemetery have to remain anonymous for “security reasons.” Vietnam is still a communist-ruled country where Chistians and other religious groups are frequently actively persecuted.
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  The problem, however, is not only the result of communist rule, says the director of the Huê cemetery, “Mr. H.” He told AsiaNews that it is the increasing secularist consumerism and individualism coming in through growing economic ties with the West that is increasing the abortion rate.
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  Mr H. told AsiaNews, “This morning, I already brought 10 babies here. Yesterday afternoon, we buried 16. It’s sad to see this with our own eyes. All 16 little foetuses had been placed in a green bag. Sometimes, we have up to 20 foetuses in the same grave. In the first three months of this year, we buried at least 400 children.”
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  Similar cemeteries are opening in Pleiku and Ho Chi Minh City and have been praised even by communist leaders as a “sacred work of love”.
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  Read coverage in AsiaNews.it
https://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=6532