City officials in Marion County, Oregon, have announced the cancellation of the county's contracts with the lead medical waste company, Stericycle, following reports that an area power plant had been burning aborted babies in their incinerators to generate electricity.
KGW-TV reports that Covanta Marion has been burning household, medical and business waste for years. However, the city was unaware that aborted babies were also being burned to produce power.
"We thought our ordinance excluded this type of material at the waste-to-energy facility," one city official said in a public statement. "We will take immediate action to ensure a process is developed to prohibit human tissue from future deliveries."
"We are outraged and disgusted that this material could be included in medical waste received at the facility," added Commissioner Janet Carlson. "We are taking immediate action and initiating discussions with Covanta Marion to make certain that this type of medical waste is not accepted in the future."
The Board of Commissioners is seeking to change its policy of concerning medical waste, and canceled its contract with Stericycle Canada, which had been transporting the "waste" from Canada into America. Stericycle's logo ironically reads, "Protecting People, Reducing Risk."
Bretano told reporters that he believes aborted babies were indeed burned at the plant.
"I believe they were in there," he told the Portland Tribune. "If we can provide a service to our region, I'm fine with that, but when it comes to British Columbia, I have no comfort in trusting them on this. That's just my personal opinion. We'd like to have that confidence, but I don't know how we could, other than tearing into the containers. I have no confidence that fetuses haven't been in there."
Liberty Pike, communications director for Oregon Right to Life, told Christian News Network that following the report out of England that aborted babies were being burned for heat, she the same thing would soon happen in the United States.
"When 1.1 million babies are being aborted in the United States annually, it begs the question: 'Where are all those bodies going?'" she said. "So while I was angry that it was happening in our own backyard, I felt it was the natural progression of abortion rights logic: if we do not respect them enough to let them live, how can we respect their bodies after they are dead?"
Pike said, however, that she is satisfied with how Marion County Board of Commissioners has handled the matter.
"I could not be more pleased and thankful for the incredibly fast work of the commissioners," she stated. "The very afternoon they discovered the Covanta practices and knew they could do something, they acted! Now that they have cut ties permanently with Stericycle, I am confident that the practice will no longer continue in this state.
This has not the first time Stericycle has been in trouble; in 2011, the company was fined over $42,000 after they were discovered to be illegally dumping aborted babies into a municipal landfill in Austin, Texas with household and commercial garbage. The Texas Commission of Environmental Quality (TCEQ) found Stericycle liable for "failure to prevent the disposal of treated fetuses at a municipal solid waste landfill" and "failure to comply with permit conditions."
"We are deeply grieved, yet not surprised, that Stericycle was involved in this heinous activity of shipping aborted babies into the U.S. from Canada to be burned as trash and used to power the community," said Michael Marcavage, director of the Campaign to Stop Stericycle. "We applaud the Marion County Board of Commissioners for cutting ties with Stericycle and amending its policies to ensure that the county has no part in the furtherance of the abortion holocaust. Stericycle must be stopped from its sick and disturbing practices in America and beyond. Without the help of Stericycle and businesses like it, the abortion industry would collapse."
