Senator Cruz claims that aborted babies in DC will be subjected to a private autopsy to determine how they died.
Authorities will permit a private pathologist to evaluate the bodies of five newborns retrieved from a D.C. abortion facility, according to Sen. Ted Cruz and a pro-life group.
The Texas Republican lawmaker and activists from the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU), as well as other members of Congress, have repeatedly requested for autopsy of the newborns to ascertain if they were aborted in violation of federal law by the D.C. medical examiner.
During a press conference with members of PAAU outside the Department of Justice headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Thursday morning, Cruz said that a private autopsy was in process.
“We’ve learned that an attorney for PAAU has confirmed that the D.C. medical examiner has agreed to allow a private pathologist to examine the bodies of the five babies,” Cruz said.
“This is a step in the right direction,” he added.
Cruz’s announcement was later corroborated by Caroline Smith, the group’s communications coordinator, who told CNA that PAAU’s counsel had struck a verbal agreement with the medical examiner’s office.
In April, members of PAAU staged a news conference in which they claimed that they had gotten 115 aborted babies from a driver for a medical waste firm to bury them in a dignified manner. Five of the babies seemed to be in their late stages of development.
The medical examiner’s office confirmed to PAAU that the five babies are in their custody, Smith informed CNA.
The other 110 aborted kids were buried in a dignified manner, according to Father Bill Kuchinsky of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia.
D.C. officials told the Washington Post on April 1 that the city’s medical examiner would not perform autopsies on the five babies. At a press conference on March 31, Executive Assistant Chief of D.C. Police Ashan Benedict claimed the five kids “were aborted in accordance with D.C. law.”
Pro-life organizations have raised concern that the way the babies’ deaths were carried out was in violation of federal law.
If Republicans gain control of the Senate in November, Cruz said hearings would be held “on the likely violations on the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban and the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.”
Cruz said that “Much of the media attention is focused on the activists, including Terrisa, who obtained the bodies, not on the abortionist who took the lives of these children; and not on the government officials in the District of Columbia and what they were doing with the remains or whether they were going to conduct an investigation”.
Despite the lack of media attention, Cruz said he will continue to demand justice for the babies. He also informed Mayor Bowser and Metropolitan Police Chief Robert J. Contee III that they “have a legal obligation to preserve evidence in this case for future congressional oversight hearings” in a letter.
“On the face of this, the evidence, the remains of these five children strongly suggests a violation of criminal law that, to date, the attorney general is turning a blind eye to because his political preferences incline him in that direction,” Cruz said.