A leading pro-life group is demanding that Washington, D.C., authorities investigate and perform an autopsy on the remains of aborted babies that were recovered last week.
“We call on the D.C. medical examiner to do an autopsy of these children’s bodies and for federal authorities to perform a thorough, unsparing investigation and prosecute violations of the law,” Susan B. Anthony List President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement. “Ending abortion is the human rights battle of our time and we hope that a just Supreme Court decision in the Dobbs case soon allows all states to take action.”
Dannenfelser’s comments come after reports that the D.C. medical examiner will not be performing autopsies on bodies of aborted babies that were turned into police last week.
These aborted babies were recovered by members of the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) and photographed last week by Live Action in attempts to raise awareness about the gestational age of the babies and the apparent cruelty that was used to end the babies’ lives.
Pro-life activists and medical professionals warn that the bodies show signs of illegal and gruesome abortion procedures, expressing fears that the bodies will be incinerated before proper autopsies can be conducted.
“These horrific images of aborted children – human beings like us, subjected to lethal violence and possibly born alive at an age when their pain would have been excruciating – expose the brutality of every one of the thousands of abortions that take place daily in America,” Dannenfelser said.
“Despite legislatures across the country acting on the will of the people to advance more protections for unborn children and mothers in recent years than ever before, atrocities like these continue because of radical U.S. policy that allows abortion on demand up to the moment of birth,” she added.
A “whistleblower” reportedly gave the aborted fetal remains to members of the PAAU, the organization said in a statement, and a PAAU member asked D.C. police to pick up the baby bodies for “forensic examination.”
Police recovered the fetal remains on Wednesday in the home of 28-year-old Lauren Handy, a member of PAAU. The remains are now in the possession of the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, which referred The Daily Wire to Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office. The Daily Wire has reached out to the mayor’s office for comment.
D.C. police have not only said that the babies seem to have been aborted legally but also indicated that the only criminal part of the incident is how the aborted baby bodies were in Handy’s house. The district does not have any specific law that bans abortion at any point, effectively allowing abortions through nine months of pregnancy.
“We are aware that the Metropolitan Police Department has stated that they do not believe a crime has been committed against these babies under DC law,” PAAU founder and executive director Terrisa Bukovinac said in a statement. “However, the laws in question are federal laws enforced by the US department of justice.”