Six officers of the New York City Police Department accompanied the tiny casket of a baby who had been abandoned in a bloody bag several months ago.
The tiny baby, named Monica by the Life Center of New York, was found in February discarded on a Brooklyn street inside a bag of bloodied clothes. The baby was estimated to be about 20 weeks away from full-term when she was found deceased; medical examiners have not disclosed an official cause of death but have speculated that the baby’s mother experienced a traumatic second trimester miscarriage. Police were unable to locate the mother of the baby after the discovered the remains.
NYPD bagpipers provided mournful music Saturday morning as members of the community honored Monica at the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Life Center of New York, a group that supports women in crisis pregnancies, organized and funded the funeral.
Group organizer Fred Trabulsi said they chose the name “Monica” as an homage to the mother of Saint Augustine. “Baby Monica, like all of us, deserves dignity and respect in living and dying,” he said.
Monica was buried in the Guardian Angel section of Resurrection Cemetery in Staten Island, in a section set aside specifically for the remains of abandoned babies. Life Center of New York will also be providing a marker for Monica’s grave.
