People Who Were Never Born

Teri showed me a cartoon on her laptop two nights ago.

The cartoon is illustrated by Dan Lacey (signed on the left) who goes by the name Faith Mouse (faithmouse.blogspot.com).

As soon as I saw the cartoon my body stopped and a thought cycled through my mind.  I stood still, staring, for five to ten seconds as, what felt like, an entire movie played through in my head.  Its hard to explain as I can't put it into any short series of words yet, but I will give it more thought and eventually write it down--hopefully before I forget it, but it doesn't seem like an idea I can easily forget.

I don't know where the statitic comes from, and I don't know if its true.  But I find it incredibly powerful how this cartoon can bring me a hollow feeling of sorrow and sadness inside evertime I see it--even now still.

I don't now how the process works--if its done chemically through injections, physical extractions through the canal, or surgical extraction--but my more inquisitive question is what happens to the fetuses.  

I imagine like all organic human parts, they can't be simply thrown in the trash; perhaps they're burned.  Burning something is quite an effective way of completely breaking it down, afterall, but is there threat of airborne infection if the tissue is diseased?  Is it standard practice to be cautious of potential airborne diseases from burning?  If it is possible?  Do samples have to be couriered off to specific contained facilities for these sorts of things or is it done in the basement of the clinics, labs, and hospitals?  How long does a fetus survive outside its host?  A few minutes? Hours? Days? Does it die in extraction?  Transportation?  After being discarded?

Does anyone know?  Has anyone else ever asked these questions?

My second thought to inhabit my mind was phoning the Royal University Hospital and possibly asking, 

"Hi, I was wondering how you, er, do your abortions."

"Er, are you asking for personal consideration?"

"Er, no, I'm asking for a friend of mine."

I don't think it is within appropriate social etiquite to ask someone what they do with fetuses.  I haven't had any result asking female gendered friends of mine either.

Eventually, though, I want to write down this idea that's been developing in my mind.  Maybe a book, maybe a movie screenplay, maybe a list of questions.