Pro-life memorial gone from South Mount Auburn site; VA health care center incoming

The field of crosses at the Cemetery of the Innocent in Cape Girardeau and its adjacent signs bearing Christian, pro-life messages have silently disappeared.

Where 500 PVC-pipe crosses once stood prominently along one of the city’s busiest motorways, a vacant lot of 500 holes remains.

As of Thursday afternoon, the only remaining piece of the pro-life memorial near the southeast corner of Interstate 55 and Highway 74 was a wooden gazebo, which sat loaded on a trailer.

Many rallies and prayer services have been held at the Cemetery of the Innocent over the years, including the annual National Life Chain demonstration organized by members of SEMO Lifesavers, the local chapter of the Missouri Right to Life.

It is unclear whether the Cemetery of the Innocent will relocate to a new location. At the time of publication, calls to SEMO Lifesavers were not returned.

In 1990, land owned by Bob Drury and Drury Southwest Inc. was donated to SEMO Lifesavers, and the Cemetery of the Innocent found its first home along Siemers Drive.

The memorial originally consisted of 700 wooden crosses. When then-President Bill Clinton came to town on a campaign stop in 1996, the local pro-life organization increased the number of crosses to 4,400 to represent the number of abortions per day in the United States.

In 2003, a business development forced the pro-life organization to relocate from its donated property on Siemers Drive to its most recent site along South Mount Auburn Road.

A new, $47.4 million, 43,000-square-foot federal Veterans Affairs health care center is reported to occupy the 7-acre property that once housed the memorial.

Officials at John J. Pershing VA Medical Center in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, announced plans for the new center Sept. 20 and held a dedication ceremony Sept. 28 at the new clinic location on South Mount Auburn Road, immediately north of SoutheastHEALTH’s cancer center.

Center director Libby Johnson has said the public will start seeing “on-the-ground progress very soon.”

Completion of the new health care center is expected by 2022.