Authorities will allow a private pathologist to examine the remains 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 the works.
“We’ve learned that the D.C. medical examiner has agreed to allow a private pathologist to examine the bodies of the five babies,” Cruz added.
He continued, “This is a step in the right way.”
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.
CNA reached out to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office for comment late Thursday but did not hear back before publishing. Cruz’s press conference can be viewed here.
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 appeared 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 terminated in compliance with D.C. law.”
Pro-life organizations have raised concern that the babies’ deaths were in violation of federal law.
If Republicans gain control of the Senate in November, Cruz said hearings would be held “on the anticipated violations of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban and the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act.”
“Much of the media attention has been focused on the activists who obtained the bodies, including Terrisa [Bukovinac], not on the abortionist who took the lives of these children; and not on the District of Columbia government officials and what they were doing with the remains or whether they were going to conduct an investigation,” he said.
In the video below, CNA reporter Katie Yoder discusses the case.
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 surface,” Cruz explained, “the evidence, the remains of these five children strongly suggests a criminal law violation that, to date, the attorney general [Merrick Garland] is turning a blind eye to because his political preferences incline him in that direction.”