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Ecumenical service recalls life lost and lives saved
By Nissa LaPoint
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Photo by James Baca/DCR |
It was 10 years ago that baby Mary Louise was found in a cardboard box near a dumpster, left to die outside of a Louisville Safeway Oct. 12, 2001.
It was a day that those in the Louisville community never want to forget. And it’s a tragedy they never want repeated.
“We thought that we don’t need to have more babies found like this,” said Yolanda Cole, a parishioner at St. Louis Catholic Church in Louisville.
In memory of the baby girl and in an effort to highlight the state’s Safe Haven Law that allows relinquishing of newborns, Cole and a group of area ministers and faithful joined to pray for an end to abandoned babies and help for parents who dispose of them.
It was Cole and fellow parishioner Leigh Ann Mitchell who organized a service and burial for the abandoned baby, named “Mary” after the Sacred Heart of Mary Catholic Cemetery she was buried at in Boulder and “Louise” after the city of Louisville.
They organized the Ecumenical Prayer Service held Oct. 12 at St. Louis Church that was led by Father Timothy Gaines, pastor of St. Louis. Community faith leaders Pastor David Christensen of Louisville United Methodist Church and hospital chaplains Don Marsh of Good Samaritan and Darrell Rott of Avista Adventist Hospital, both Seventh-day Adventists, also participated in the prayer service.
“We hope and pray that this service today will continue the healing and bring some good to this tragedy,” Cole said.
The small gathering of ministers, children and the local fire chief prayed and spoke about the sanctity of life and importance of protecting the most innocent.
“While the number of us here is few, I think it’s important for us as a community to at least, especially as ministers in the community, say to families that there is hope,” Father Gaines said. “We want to say to families there is a choice, there is hope and there is support.”
Since the baby was found, local nonprofits and resources were formed for parents unable to care for infants, including the Colorado Safe Haven for Newborns in Littleton, which works to spread knowledge about the law and give mothers information about safe alternatives to abandonment.
Such an option made possible for mothers and fathers is the Safe Haven Law, passed by the Colorado General Assembly in April 2000. The law is one that helps save lives without condemning parents or holding them criminally responsible, said Fire Chief Tim Parker of the Louisville Fire Protection District.
“We’re awfully excited when there are new tools available for us to be able to prevent injury and save lives,” Parker said. “And one of those we consider is the Safe Haven Law of Colorado. The law permits parents to surrender anonymously their newborn that is not older than 3 days old. One of the caveats of that is they cannot have any injuries and they must have good health.”
The Safe Haven Law provides a defense against prosecution if a parent leaves an unharmed and healthy baby voluntarily and directly to personnel at a hospital or fire station within 72 hours after birth. Without the law, abandoning a baby would be punishable by up to 26 years in prison.
An estimated 105 newborns were discarded in public places across the nation in 1998 alone, 33 of which were found dead, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services survey cited by the Colorado Safe Haven for Newborns. Yet since the law was passed in 2000, 32 babies were safely handed over to personnel in Colorado.
“We always say if one baby can be saved, than that is just an outstanding thing,” Mitchell said. “We were here 10 years ago to help Mary Louise’s mother, but the information did not get out there and that’s where we failed. I feel like now we need to be more aggressive in getting the information out.”
As a once teenage mother herself, Ellen Oasheim understands the need for mothers who need support.
“I was very fortunate because I had my family” to help me, said Oasheim, who gave birth to her twins, Matthew and Michael, at 18 years old. “Mothers need to know that there is help out there.”
She sang with her two sons “Amazing Grace” and “How Great Thou Art” during the service. A group of first- and second-grade students from St. Louis Catholic School sang “Yes, Jesus Loves Me” in English and Spanish before Rott read a Scripture passage from Isaiah 49.
After the service, a small group prayed the rosary inside the church.
“I believe this is a great cause,” Rott said. “We want to tell mothers, ‘We’re not here to condemn you, we just want to love this child.’”
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