Ministry offers dignified burials for aborted, miscarried, and stillborn babies

A small non-profit ministry based in New Orleans has been providing dignified funerals and burials for babies who were stillborn, miscarried, aborted, or abandoned to die. 

Key Takeaways:

• Lise Naccari founded Compassionate Burials for Indigent Babies after she found out her baby's remains had been thrown away as medical waste.

• She became compelled to act when she learned the body parts of aborted babies were being trafficked, robbing these babies of a dignified burial.

• Each baby is given a funeral honoring the value of their short lives, from the tiniest of preborn babies to two-year-olds.

The Details:

The ministry, Compassionate Burials for Indigent Babies (CBIB), was born from the belief that no life, however brief, should be treated without dignity.

Since its establishment in 2003, CBIB has provided more than 200 babies with dignified funerals and burials, tiny souls that might otherwise have been thrown away as medical waste or buried without ceremony.

At the crux of CBIB is the personal story of founder and executive director Lise Naccari, a woman whose personal story of loss, faith, and calling has drawn others to volunteer their services to honor  “the least of these little ones.”

Naccari’s mission started with her own tragic experience with losing her baby and learning later that her baby’s remains had been disposed of. “My baby went to medical waste and was thrown away like trash,” Naccari said.

The pain of not being able to bury her child remained with her for years. That tragic grief, once a private heartbreak, became the impetus of a larger calling. 

One day, after watching a television program about the trafficking of aborted baby parts, Naccari informed her mother she wanted to bury abandoned babies. Her mother responded,  “Lise, you have to do this.” 

The words from her mother motivated Naccari became a mandate that would change hundreds of lives, and countless eternal souls.

Zoom In:

Women who lose children through miscarriage typically have to endure the pain silently. 

“Losing a child is hard. Often women suffer in silence the pain of infant loss and ride that sad emotional roller coaster ride alone,” Naccari said in an interview with the Catholic News Agency (CNA). 

Not only does Naccari bury babies who were wanted and loved, but also babies who were disposed of or mistreated.

“CBIB has buried babies as big as a blueberry and up to [two] years old,” Naccari said. “We buried babies stillborn, miscarried, abandoned, unclaimed, aborted, murdered, and thrown away in the trash — and every situation possible.”

“Many babies were mistreated, abused, and tossed out … these are heartbreaking funerals to go to,” Naccari said. 

Each funeral is a prayerful remembrance: small white coffins, flowers, Scripture readings, and words of comfort provided to grieving parents who frequently were unaware that they could seek recourse in such situations. The ministry’s volunteers accompany grieving families so that no child leaves this world unnamed or unloved.

Naccari said that each burial is a reminder of Christ’s call to mercy: “Whatever you do for the least of these little ones, you do it for me.”

“I consider what I do holy,” Naccari said. “I feel like this is my vocation and I know God orchestrated all of this. I give all honor and glory to him, our loving Father.” 

“What I do is not about sorrow and death,” Naccari continued. “What I do is really about joy and life — eternal life.” 

Besides funerals, CBIB helped with the passage of Louisiana’s 2016 Compassionate Burials Option Act (HB618), which empowers parents to bury miscarried babies who die before 20 weeks of gestation. Before that law was passed, many hospitals discarded remains from early miscarriages as medical waste.

Owing to CBIB’s work, families now have the legal right to treat their preborn children with dignity through burial, enabling them to seek closure and peace. This legal attainment reinforces the group’s larger goal to support Louisiana's Safe Haven Law, which permits a parent to anonymously surrender an unharmed newborn up to 60 days old at a designated hospital, fire station, or police station without fear of reprisals.

The Bottom Line:

CBIB’s motto — “All human life is sacred and precious and deserves respect” — reflects the Catholic Church’s perennial social teaching on the dignity of every human life, born or preborn.

In a secular world that often extols the culture of death, CBIB’s work provides compassion and support for grieving families, acting as living testimonies to the Gospel message that every life is sacred and an example of God’s infinite goodness.