Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford is denouncing D.C. officials for failing to properly address the deaths of five premie-sized aborted babies found in the nation’s capitol.
“I demanded an investigation from D.C. Mayor Bowser, the D.C. police, and the Department of Justice into the deaths of the five babies whose lives were stolen through gruesome late-term abortion procedures, potentially violating federal law,” Lankford told The Daily Wire.
“Unsurprisingly, my request was met with a shrug,” he said. “Some in our nation’s capital may not care about the value of every child, but I believe every child is valuable. I’m not giving up on these precious lives lost or on the refusal to investigate how their lives were taken.”
“I’m not letting this go,” Lankford promised.
His comments come amid repeated media inquiries and calls for investigations and autopsies from Republican lawmakers and pro-life activists.
Lankford led Republican lawmakers in demanding that D.C. authorities determine how the babies died by preserving the baby bodies as evidence and performing autopsies.
Lawmakers have also asked that the Department of Justice investigate whether the abortionist who ended the babies’ lives violated federal law by performing partial-birth abortions while the babies were still alive or by allowing the babies to die after they were born alive.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser finally weighed in on the matter late last Friday in a response to Lankford, but the mayor did not address calls for investigations or autopsies.
Instead, she singled out Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising activist Lauren Handy, one of the women who has said they intercepted the fetal remains at Washington Surgi Clinic on March 25.
Handy has been charged and indicted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in a separate October 2020 incident wherein she pushed her way into an abortion clinic. Bowser called this “extremist anti-abortion activity.”
“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is in consultation with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia on both matters,” the mayor said, calling the October 2020 incident and Handy’s involvement in finding the fetal remains “potentially, serious violations of federal law.”
She has not responded to The Daily Wire’s requests for comment regarding the requested autopsies. The D.C. Medical Examiner directed The Daily Wire to her office when asked for comment, and the Metropolitan Police Department has steadily refused to divulge information citing an ongoing investigation into the matter.
Staff at the clinic have refused to discuss the aborted baby bodies with The Daily Wire, directing press inquiries to the National Abortion Federation, which has not responded to requests for comment.
“D.C. officials do not care about federal laws protecting our most vulnerable, and their silence only confirms it,” Republican Texas Rep. Chip Roy told The Daily Wire on Wednesday. “Performing an autopsy and acknowledging the mere possibility that abortionist Cesare Santangelo broke the law would require Mayor Bowser and her radically pro-abortion cronies to concede that these are indeed human beings worthy of protection.”
“Biden’s Department of Justice should investigate these horrific acts, rather than put the administration’s pro-abortion ideology above the lives of these children,” he added. “That’s what a serious and functional DOJ would do. Given its record, however, I won’t hold my breath.”