DOJ Orders Destruction of 5 Aborted Babies Held as Evidence in Pro-life Case

The medical examiner’s office in Washington has informed attorneys from the Thomas More Society that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) instructed them to destroy the remains of five babies this week. The remains had been retained as evidence following a request by Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and other legislators after allegations surfaced that the babies were victims of illegal late-term abortions.

“It has recently been brought to my attention that the D.C. government may incinerate the bodies of these five children without conducting an investigation, without performing any autopsies, and without affording these children a proper, respectful burial,” Mr. Cruz wrote in 2022.

The babies were discovered in a box of so-called medical waste, that was being picked up from the Washington Surgi-Clinic. At the time, Mr. Cruz wrote a letter to the mayor and police directing them to preserve the remains for autopsies, “consistent with the type of method and detail that would be conducted in a murder investigation,” or at minimum, preserve them for future investigations and congressional oversight.

“Tragically, the D.C. Medical Examiner’s office is in possession of the remains of babies who were victims of late-term abortions,” Mr. Cruz said in a statement. “The DOJ is now pressuring the medical examiner to destroy evidence and dispose of the remains. Instead of investigating whether these late-term abortions violated the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, the DOJ is focused on destroying evidence and prosecuting pro-life protestors.”

Mr. Cruz said, “Destroying evidence is a grave threat to the rule of law, and it is another tragic chapter in the Biden DOJ’s sad history of having two justice systems.”

He added that the medical examiner “should reject the DOJ’s lawless order to destroy evidence and instead conduct a proper investigation into whether these late-term abortions violated the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act, or, at minimum, allow for an autopsy by an outside group.”

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Thomas More Society attorneys are representing the woman who found the box on another matter. They have been pressing for autopsies too, on behalf of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), Caroline T. Smith, the group’s executive director, told The Epoch Times.

“The story here is the new confirmation that the federal government has zero interest in following this where the evidence may lead,” Martin Cannon, senior counsel with the Thomas More Society told The Epoch Times. “Whether it’s the DOJ or the US Attorney’s office, the administration and Mayor [Muriel] Bowser’s office have been opposed to these babies seeing the light of day since the matter arose two years ago.”

115 Babies Named

The babies were discovered on March 25, 2022, by Lauren Handy, the director of activism for the PAAU, and Terrisa Bukovinac, the group’s founder.

The women were headed to the abortion business to engage in street counseling when they saw a medical waste truck. They told a worker there were aborted babies in the boxes he was loading into the truck and asked if they could have a box to give the babies a proper burial, according to PAAU. Inside, they found the remains of 110 first-trimester babies and five later-term babies that appeared to be in the second and third trimesters. They named each one, held a funeral mass with a Catholic priest, and buried the 110 in a cemetery.

The women contacted the police through an attorney because the older five babies appeared to have been born alive or to have been subjected to partial-birth abortion. They asked police to take the babies, have an autopsy performed, and learn if they were legally or illegally aborted according to PAAU.

The same day the police picked up the remains of the five babies in March 2022, the FBI arrested Ms. Handy and charged her with a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for an October 2020 incident at the same abortion business.

In an indictment, the DOJ said Ms. Handy and others entered the abortion business and blocked two doors “using their bodies, furniture, chains and ropes.” Soon the DOJ had indicted nine people with the FACE Act in connection with the same 2020 incident. They were found guilty in April 2023 and, because they were considered dangerous, they were taken directly from court into custody. Now eight are in federal prison and one is on house arrest.

They will be sentenced in May and face up to 11 years in prison plus hefty fines. None of the charges were related to the box of remains or anything that happened in 2022.

“We have strong reason to believe … with the DOJ ordering these remains of the D.C.-5 babies to be destroyed, [there is] correlation to the fact that sentencing is coming soon,” Ms. Smith said. “These babies were found at the same clinic where that action occurred, and to us, these babies are clearly evidence of federal crimes.”

She says PAAU has been actively encouraging autopsies to be conducted because sentencing is imminent.

“All of a sudden now, they are saying they need to be destroyed,” she said.

In response to the call for the destruction of the babies’ remains, PAAU, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, and 35 other pro-life organizations sent a coalition letter to Congress asking for their intervention as soon as possible.

PAAU held a protest in front of the medical examiner’s office Wednesday night. The five babies were named Christopher X, Harriet, Angel, Holly, and Phoenix.

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment. The Epoch Times also reached out to the medical examiner’s office for comment.