Disposable children?

[Starless]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2009...able-children/

A section of Woodlawn Cemetery is the final resting place for dozens of abused, abandoned or poor children. Not that you would know that. As Joe Schoenmann reported in Saturday’s Las Vegas Sun, most of the graves lack headstones.
There are at least 81 children who are buried there without headstones. In some cases no one knows the identity of the children. In other cases the children were either abandoned or wards of the state and have no one to pay for burials, much less headstones.
The children are buried in ignominy. For the abandoned and indigent, Clark County pays for burial or cremation but not the $470.74 that it costs for a headstone, which nearly doubles the cost of a child’s burial. On a cemetery map, the nameless children are labeled as “Doe.” Some have darker labels describing the remains, including “Half Skull” and “Alta (Drive) Bones.”
The headstones that are in the section are provided by good Samaritans. For example, the death of 2-year-old Adacelli Snyder four years ago prompted a community outpouring because of the horrific circumstances — she starved to death in a dirty trailer. Donors raised money for her gravestone, along with a granite bench that sits nearby.
Snyder’s case is a rarity, but it shouldn’t be. In 2001 Palm Mortuary donated 130 burial plots for indigent or abandoned babies and erected a monument, planning to engrave the babies’ names on it. However, the county has not taken advantage of the space, and instead uses Woodlawn.
Garden of Innocence National, a San Diego County group that voluntarily buries abandoned and indigent children and provides headstones, offered its services to Clark County two years ago. The group was turned down because the county said the group wanted to take custody of the children’s bodies and noted that the group is not a mortuary. Elissa Davey, Garden of Innocence’s founder, said if the county wants a mortuary to have custody of the children’s bodies, “we’d be fine with that.”
“Our concern is the dignity of that child,” Davey said. “They are human beings. They deserve simple headstones and a service, to have somebody there who cares.”
Indeed. Why the county hasn’t taken advantage of the services of either Palm Mortuary or Garden of Innocence is a mystery to us. The way the county is dealing with the abandoned and indigent children who die is a symptom of a larger problem. The state does not properly fund social services, particularly child welfare, which leaves poor and abandoned children in danger during their lives. Burying them in paupers’ graves is the final indignity.
It has been said that the true measure of a society can be found in the way it treats its least and most vulnerable. Nevada has been known for its libertarian live-and-let-live attitude, which may explain the way indigent and abandoned children are treated. The story of these children, from their short and often difficult lives to their paupers’ graves, shows that our society treats them as disposable. That is reprehensible. The county should work with the groups of volunteers that want to help give these children a proper burial. It is the least Clark County can do.