Members from 54 area churches served as pallbearers in a memorial service for the 54 aborted fetuses that were dumped on the side of a California freeway.

In this story:

• 'The babies were destroyed'
• Legal action?
• Related stories and sites

RIVERSIDE, California (CNN) -- The remains of 54 aborted fetuses, each in a tiny white casket, were buried by church members who said they hoped a memorial service would remind people of the "sacredness of life."

Sunday's mass funeral was held more than a year and a half after the discarded fetuses were found in cardboard boxes in a Riverside County field.

While abortion is legal under a 1973 Supreme Court decision, a truck driver for the Los Angeles medical clinic where the abortions were performed served 71 days in jail for illegally dumping the boxes in March 1997.

About 300 people turned out for the service organized by 54 area churches, whose congregation members served as pallbearers. One by one, the caskets were placed in three large burial vaults.

"The bodies of these 54 innocent victims, welcome them into your presence," prayed Rev. Michael Maher of St. Paul the Apostle Church.

Some mourners wept as they placed flowers in the burial vaults. "I'm hurt because the babies were destroyed the way they were and I'm glad we're putting them in a resting place forever," pallbearer Hazel Alridge said.

A mourner places a flower on one of the caskets at the memorial service on Sunday

"We're using this to cause people to consider the sacredness of life and the finality of innocent death," said Bob Shelly, a member of Alive Now Christian Center in Chino Hills.

A large headstone containing names given to each fetus marked the graves at Crestlawn Cemetery.

"I can't imagine anyone killing their unborn child," said Cathy Lowers, who said she is pregnant with her first child.

"I was thinking of the (mass graves) in World War II. It brought back that memory of senseless slaughter," her husband Charles Lowers said.

San Bernardino County Coroner Brian McCormick released the fetuses Friday to a coalition of anti-abortion groups over objections from the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which has threatened legal action.

Since the funeral already has taken place, the ACLU is seeking a judgment that affirms McCormick acted wrongly and should not do so again. The coroner's office has not publicly commented on the issue.

The ACLU said the release of the fetuses for Christian burials violated the separation of church and state.

ACLU Associate Director Elizabeth Schroeder said the coroner's office ignored a 1984 California Court of Appeals decision. The appellate court ruled that the Los Angeles County district attorney's office violated the separation of church and state when it proposed to bury 16,500 fetal remains with religious ceremonies.

The remains were illegally dumped in a Chino Hills field in March 1997.

The religious organizations petitioned the coroner's office to release the fetuses for burial after the criminal investigation into the clinic and its driver were completed.

Correspondent Jim Hill and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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