DC Officials Urged to Preserve 5 Aborted Babies That Could Be Evidence of Federal Crime
The pressure is mounting on D.C. city officials to preserve the bodies of the five dead babies suspected of being victims of illegal and very late-term abortions performed in 2022 at a Washington, D.C. abortion clinic.
As CBN News reported in April of 2022, the five babies at the center of headlines were among 115 remains from unborn babies rescued on March 25 from a medical waste transport company parked outside the Washington Surgi-Clinic in D.C.
The babies' masticated corpses were handed over to pro-life activist Lauren Handy. Pro-life groups believe the five babies were illegally aborted in violation of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act or the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.
Attorneys with the Thomas More Society are defending Handy against prosecution by the Biden Department of Justice for her attempts to stop such abortions in the facility, the nonprofit law firm said.
On Monday, Thomas More Society Senior Counsel Martin Cannon received "a call from the Medical Examiner's Office indicating that the DOJ has advised them that there is no reason to keep those babies anymore," The Daily Signal reported.
"And the medical examiner's office accordingly tells me that if we don't have an order to the contrary, by the end of this week, a court order, they will dispose of the babies," he told the outlet.
In a letter to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Cannon asked the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to halt the scheduled destruction of the infants remains, set for Friday, and investigate the deaths as evidence of a federal crime in Washington, D.C.
In the letter to Jordan, Cannon states that the body of evidence makes it "more likely than not that some babies" at the Santangelo abortion facility are "in fact born alive and left to die."
Cannon's letter also details how the medical examiner's office has had the babies for nearly two years. On Feb. 5, 2024, the news surfaced that the examiner's office had been allegedly told by the DOJ that they could dispose of the infant's bodies.
With no autopsies performed on their nearly full-term cadavers and no investigation into their deaths conducted, there is no ability to conclude that the preborn children were legally aborted, according to the Thomas More Society.
Members of Congress Also Ramp Up Pressure
Several lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week also called on D.C. authorities to preserve the aborted babies' remains.
In a letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Metropolitan Police Department's chief, Pamela Smith, Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government Chairman Chip Roy (R-TX) and Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance Chairman Andy Biggs (R-AZ) said, "We strongly urge you to reconsider this decision and request that you preserve this evidence," according to a copy of the letter obtained by The Daily Signal.
"Despite this significant claim, both the MPD and DOJ chose to ignore any potential evidence of a crime for two years," they write. "Now, DOJ has reportedly directed the Medical Examiner that 'there is no reason to keep those babies anymore.'"
"Serious questions remain about the circumstances of these children's deaths," they conclude. "This situation demands congressional oversight, and you have already received requests from Congress to preserve evidence in this case. If partial-birth abortions were conducted on these unborn children, that is a violation of federal law and should be investigated as such. However, if the evidence in this case is destroyed, any future investigation will be severely hampered," the congressmen continued.
Sen. James Lankford and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) have also sent a letter to DC Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Francisco J. Diaz, M.D. demanding answers about the reports the babies' bodies would be destroyed on Friday.
"The bodies of these children must not be destroyed until a thorough investigation is conducted into the death of each child," Lankford and Smith wrote. "These five children, like all children, have inherent value and worth. They deserve to have their deaths investigated to ensure that no DC or federal laws were broken."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) also strongly warned D.C. officials that disposing of the bodies "before justice can be achieved" would be to "deny these five innocent victims justice and assume the cause and nature of these children's deaths without conducting any investigation, without performing any autopsies, and without even affording these children a proper, respectful burial," according to The Daily Signal.
"As I previously explained to your offices, it is a grave injustice both that these children may very well have been aborted in violation of federal law, and that the D.C. government—that Congress oversees—remains unwilling to investigate the circumstances," he said.
In addition, 35 pro-life organizations asked Congress this week to intervene and demanded the babies' remains not be discarded before an autopsy is completed, according to the Washington Examiner.
On Wednesday, a group of 45 Republican lawmakers signed a letter led by Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) calling on the DOJ to halt any effort to destroy the five babies' bodies, according to newsbusters.org.
CBN News has reached out to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for comment. We'll post the response here if we hear back.
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