Illegal D.C. abortions? House GOP chairs pledge probe, hearings before DOJ can erase evidence

Late-term fetuses aborted in a clinic blocks from the White House nearly got sent to Baltimore for incineration to warm homes, say the pro-life activists who recovered them, gave them to District of Columbia police and shared the images nearly two years ago.

Now the "DC 5" babies, whom activists named Harriet, Christopher X, Holly, Angel and Phoenix, are at the center of a standoff between leading House Republicans and the Biden administration.

The Justice Department allegedly told the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to dump the remains despite signs their abortions violated federal law and may have been live deliveries. 

The chairmen of two House Judiciary subcommittees and the House Freedom Caucus held a press conference Wednesday  in front of the Capitol to demand OCME make the remains available for independent autopsy and a possible congressional investigation.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, cited "continued evidence that's mounted" that the procedures were illegal. He compared the images to the undercover Planned Parenthood fetal-harvesting videos that led to a $2 million judgment against pro-life activists, whose appeal was denied by the Supreme Court last fall.

Roy's godson was nearly aborted because of a bad diagnosis, he said, repeating a story he shared in a committee hearing in 2019. "We are standing against that kind of callousness." 

"Under absolutely no circumstances" should OCME destroy the remains, and GOP leadership supports their efforts, said Congressional Pro-Life Caucus Co-Chairman Chris Smith, R-N.J. 

Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., calling D.C.'s purported investigation "malpractice" and said, "We need hearings, we need proper burials" for the five.

Roy and Biggs, the Constitution and Crime subcommittee chairs, urged D.C. Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith in a Feb. 8 letter to "preserve this evidence," after DOJ's alleged directive was reported.

Images suggest the procedures plausibly violated the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007, and Born Alive Infant Protection Act, given the fetuses "appear to have developed well past the point of viability, and likely suffered severely painful abortion procedures," the letter reads.

"We're calling for transparency" and a House vote to approve independent autopsies, said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., whose speech was interrupted by a heckler who shouted, "Abortion forever, you fascist piece of sh*t!"

Rep. Patrick Fallon, R-Texas, asked rhetorically what could be "more barbaric" than these procedures. "Are we a country that has rule of law or not?" he asked, calling for a congressional investigation. 

Fallon joked that the heckler "was from the DOJ" and briefly followed a purple-haired protester who lectured a pro-life activist while he was speaking. "You from the DOJ too?" he called out.

They were joined at the Capitol by conservative and progressive pro-life activists and their lawyers, who have threatened legal action to stop OCME from dumping the remains. 

The American Center for Law and Justice, which represented a reverend seeking to take possession of the fetuses under a D.C. burial law for unknown "next of kin," took credit for doing that at least temporarily.

"We have just received assurances that the D.C. government is standing down from today’s cremation," ACLJ said in a statement Friday. Reviewing their correspondence, the Daily Signal reported that OCME told ACLJ about "a long queue of people and organizations" including lawmakers asking for the remains' protection.

"This is a seminal moment for the pro-life movement," like the "napalm girl" who helped turn America against the Vietnam war and the murder of Emmett Till that fueled the civil rights movement, Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising founder Terrisa Bukovinac said at the press conference.

She recovered the fetuses in March 2022 from the Washington Surgi-Clinic with fellow PAAU activist Lauren Handy, who could get 11 years in prison at sentencing next month for her 2020 "lock and block" protest at the clinic. 

Handy alleges the bodies are pivotal to overturning her conviction under the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

Roy said Wednesday he could see bipartisan support for his FACE Act repeal bill, sponsored in the Senate by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah.

Rep. Smith described these activities as "nonviolent civil disobedience" in the vein of Martin Luther King Jr.'s protests.

Bukovinac is also challenging President Biden for the Democratic nomination, using federal election law to compel TV stations to air campaign ads with gruesome abortion images.

Her mentor Randall Terry, known for his Operation Rescue anti-abortion activism decades earlier, promoted his independent presidential campaign to do the same before the press conference Wednesday.

Even if D.C. hands over the bodies, it's not clear the activists could find a doctor willing to perform the autopsies, whose results could challenge MPD's claim that the abortions were lawful.

Asked how Congress could protect doctors who fear for their medical licenses if they get involved, Roy said they must use current law and deploy "shame" against DOJ and OCME.

"The only people who seemed interested [in helping] decided to bow out," Bukovinac told Just the News. 

"One just fell off the planet and the other said his wife didn't want him getting involved," she said. While it's not clear they would face "repercussions … people are afraid nonetheless." 

Also a stone's throw from George Washington University, the Washington Surgi-Clinic is run by Cesare Santangelo, who once said in a surreptitious recording that he would not deliver life-saving treatment to an infant born alive.

Pro-life activists have long compared him to Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, convicted 11 years ago of murdering three full-term delivered babies and a woman's involuntary manslaughter.

"You don't have to be pro-life to be with us on this issue," said Concerned Women for America President Penny Nance, noting that former pro-choice Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., voted for the federal ban on partial-birth abortions.

She pointed to the "heads collapsed in" as evidence of the procedure and said Georgetown University Hospital nurses have "seen the damage [Santangelo] has wrought all the time." A CWA spokesperson told Just the News she would provide more information on the nurses.