BBC News - Foetuses found in Thailand temple
16 November 2010 Last updated at 15:55 ETFoetuses found in Thailand temple
Police in Thailand have found the remains of more than 300 human foetuses hidden in a Buddhist temple in the capital, Bangkok.
The police say they suspect the foetuses came from illegal abortion clinics.
News reports say a member of the temple staff confessed to being hired by several clinics to dispose of remains.
Abortion is illegal in Thailand, except when the pregnancy affects the mother's health or is the result of rape.
Police chief Sumeth Ruangswasdi said they had been called to investigate a strong smell in the temple, and discovered a total of 348 foetuses in plastic bags, AP reports.
He said he believed that the foetuses must have been collected from abortion clinics and disposed of at different times because they were different colours and conditions.
The corpses were wrapped in plastic bags and newspaper and found in a mortuary storage area.
The police were reported to be questioning the temple's mortician.
Buddhist temples in Thailand not only perform cremation ceremonies, but also store bodies in specially refrigerated areas.
This is a strong argument against allowing the government to make choices of morality. Ideally, a government choosing to be involved in health care will see to the safety of procedures being done, but will allow an individual to make health-care choices based upon their own sense of, among other things, morality. A church choosing to be involved (ideally) will be involved in the debate, in the education of it's parishioners and those who seek their counsel of the potential spiritual effects of their choices, and a church has every right to deny membership or pastoral counsel to those with whom they do not agree or wish to deal. A government designed to promote freedom and equanimity should not have that choice, and a church or spiritual faction believing it's moral code to be superior and that there will be an exclusionary outcome should. As soon as a government enacts morality-based legislation it is no longer working in the interests of freedom or equality, and as soon as a church involves itself in the workings of the government it loses the right to declare it's superiority without proof of such which is acceptable to society at large. People who agree with your moral choices will make similar choices themselves without government involvement. Those who disagree will be convinced more quickly of your rightness through evidence, not of God, but of the natural rewards of making similar choices to yours and the natural consequences of making contrary ones. By the same token, a government whose people mistrust it is an ineffective government, and people will more willingly trust a government whose choices are, not in theory but in fact, most conducive to a cooperative, healthy environment for all no matter with whom those choices might on the surface appear to agree or disagree.
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