Congressman Chip Roy renews request to preserve bodies of five aborted DC babies

Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas) said on Thursday that the District of Columbia has still not given Congress the information it has requested on the five nearly full-term babies found in a medical waste bin outside a Washington, D.C., abortion facility in March 2022. He has renewed the request that the bodies be preserved as evidence.

In a letter, Roy called out Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith, along with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on the “lackluster investigation into the five aborted children, also known as the DC Five, whose remains were discovered at the Washington Surgi-Clinic in March 2022 by pro-life advocates.” He noted that “serious concerns remain surrounding the deaths of these children.”

Washington, D.C., has no restrictions on abortion, and experts have said that based on the estimated ages of the babies, they would have likely been old enough to have survived outside the womb. One of the babies, named “Harriet” by the activists who found her, had an incision on the back of her neck that experts felt may indicate the use of the federally banned D&X abortion procedure, more commonly referred to as “partial-birth abortion.” There is also concern that other babies found with Harriet might have been born alive.

In a 2013 Live Action undercover investigation, the owner of Washington Surgi-Center, abortionist Cesare Santangelo, noted that his method of killing preborn babies does not involve the use of an injected feticide, but instead, he cuts the umbilical cord and waits for the child to die by cardiac arrest. He also said if a child survived an abortion at his facility, he and his staff “would not help it” to ensure survival.

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On April 8, 2022, federal legislators — including 23 senators and 46 representatives — sent a letter to Garland, asking the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate the babies’ deaths. That same day, Bowser said the DOJ should be investigating Lauren Handy, one of the pro-life activists who obtained the bodies from the driver of a medical waste disposal vehicle, rather than investigate how these children were killed. Abortion is not restricted at any gestational age in Washington, D.C.

In February 2024, Roy asked that the police or mayor confirm that the babies’ bodies would not be disposed of, but neither has informed Roy if the bodies have been preserved as evidence or what has become of them.

“To date, both the Executive Office of the Mayor and the Metropolitan Police Department continue to ignore my February 2024 request to confirm that the remains of these unborn babies will not be disposed,” wrote Roy. “Future congressional investigations into potential violations and the sufficiency of existing law will undoubtedly be hampered if these remains and any related evidence are destroyed. These children deserve justice, regardless of which administration is in power.”

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