Private burial of miscarried foetuses now an option

An administrative arrangement has been put in place to allow parents to bury miscarried foetuses that are less than 24 weeks old, a spokesman for the Health Division said.

Previously, parents had no say as to the burial of their foetuses, which were interred during an annual collective ceremony in a special grave at Santa Maria Addolorata Cemetery.

The spokesman told The Times that the arrangement respects all the legal requirements for private burial, adding that all the relevant staff are currently being briefed.

However, he said, the division would continue to offer communal burial of foetuses at no charge for the parents who wish to have their babies buried during the annual ceremony.

The issue was raised in Parliament by Labour MP Justyne Caruana last month. Dr Caruana's plea that foetuses should be handed to the parents for burial as they thought fit was backed by Nationalist MPs Michael Asciak and Franco Galea. The issue was also discussed during a meeting of the Bioethics Consultative Committee, which had called on the authorities to address the situation.

The pro-life movement Gift Of Life has also expressed its full support for Dr Caruana's call to allow parents the option of burying their babies where they choose.

"Parents who go through such a traumatic experience may find great comfort in being able to bury the remains in a place and time of their choosing. Those who have been through this trauma, particularly when the miscarriage takes place later on in the pregnancy, go through a very distressing period," they said in a statement issued at the beginning of the month.

Gift Of Life said the call to allow parents the option to bury the remains of miscarriage personally was "laudable" and it encouraged it fully, especially if it brought about early closure for both parents at a very difficult time.

About 15 per cent of conceptions result in miscarriage and since no birth or death certificate is issued for a baby born before 24 weeks of gestation, these could not be buried privately.

For the past six years the communal burial was organised by the local Still Birth and Neonatal Death Society (Sands) in a bid to give the babies the dignity they deserve and closure for the parents. All the foetuses are collected a day before the burial, with each put in an individual fabric pocket, and then in a casket. Mass is said at the cemetery chapel, followed by burial.