Approximately six hundred stillbirths occur in Bulgaria each year. Confronted with a deeply traumatic experience, the parents of stillborn babies face yet another ordeal as they can neither cremate nor bury their children. Their bodies become hospital property and are incinerated as biological waste along with all other medical waste. Bulgaria is the only Member State of the European Union in which the inhumane practice of incinerating stillborn babies exists.
By signing this petition you can help us to bring on the necessary legisative changes that would allow parents to bury or cremate their stillborn children's bodies and thus facilitate their grieving and healing process.
Thank you!
Approximately six hundred stillbirths occur in Bulgaria each year. Confronted with a deeply traumatic experience, the parents of stillborn babies face yet another ordeal as they can neither cremate nor bury their children. Regardless of the month in which a stillbirth occurs, including in cases of infant loss shortly after birth, the bodies of these infants become hospital property and are incinerated as biological waste along with all other medical waste. This means that bereaved parents can neither receive a cremation urn with the ashes of their child nor visit a burial plot – acts that are vitally important throughout the grieving process.
Bulgaria is the only Member State of the European Union in which the inhumane practice of incinerating stillborn babies exists.
We call for the immediate discontinuation of this brutality through the enactment of amendments to applicable laws and regulations.
The incineration of stillborn babies and infants who have died shortly after birth as biological waste is envisaged in the Vital Statistics Registration Act and Regulation No 2 of 21 April 2011 laying down the health requirements for burial grounds (cemeteries) and the burial and transportation of deceased persons. According to current rules burial/cremation requires an issued birth/death death certificate, a personal identification number and a name. In the case of a stillbirth these requirements cannot be fulfilled.
We insistently call for enacting the necessary amendments to current legislation that will enable the burial/cremation of these infants following the issuance of a birth certificate (the document envisaged in Article 48(4) of the Vital Statistics Registration Act).
Several international studies unambiguously demonstrate the significance of parting with a deceased child for mourning parents. Those who have had the opportunity to bury or cremate their baby are far less prone to depression and anxiety disorders and recover faster.
We appeal for the enactment of the necessary legislative changes as soon as possible.
