Left-wing pro-life activists allegedly discovered the remains of approximately 115 aborted babies in Washington, D.C., on March 25, 2022, five of whom they say might have been partially aborted or killed after birth in violation of federal law.
Founder and Executive Director of Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) Terrisa Bukovinac and the group’s director of activism, Lauren Handy, said they recovered the infants from Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services outside of the Washington Surgi-Center. The pair allegedly convinced the waste services driver to give them one of the boxes, telling him it likely contained “dead babies” and that they would give them a proper burial and funeral. Curtis Bay has previously denied any involvement.
Bukovinac and Handy then allegedly took the box and brought it back to Handy’s apartment. There, they opened the box and the red plastic bag inside to find the remains of 110 mostly first-trimester aborted children. At the bottom of the box was a clear plastic bag with five more containers, Bukovinac described at the time. Those allegedly held the remains of five late-term aborted babies, which PAAU named Christopher X, Harriet, Phoenix, Holly, and Angel.
Warning: graphic and disturbing content
“At the bottom of the box was a clear plastic bag with five more containers. One much bigger than the remaining four. Lauren reached into the largest bucket and removed the remains of a beautiful, intact, and nearly full-term baby boy we named Christopher X,” Bukovinac said in a press conference last year. “I think I can speak for both Lauren and I when I say this was the most devastating and soul-crushing experience of our lives. Not even years of anti-abortion advocacy could have prepared us for that moment.”
Bukovinac said they found four more late-term aborted babies with “a range of injuries, including a fully intact girl we named Harriet, who had one eye open and an incision in the back of her neck, her brain suctioned out, and her skull crushed.”
PAAU believes the abortions were performed by Dr. Cesare Santangelo, who operates out of the Washington Surgi-Center. He is the same abortionist who was recorded in 2012 allegedly saying he would allow babies to die if they were born alive during an abortion.
AJ Hurley, who works as Live Action’s director of activism, was with Handy and Bukovinac shortly after their horrific discovery and saw the aborted babies first-hand. Breitbart News interviewed Hurley on July 15 in West Palm Beach, Florida, at the Turning Point Action Conference.
“I’m a pediatric neonatal respiratory therapist. I worked at UCLA for about seven years, so I am used to seeing very small children. I can tell you every single one of those children were at gestational ages where they could have lived outside of the womb with little to zero help at all,” Hurley said. “One of the babies was basically a full-term child. And to be honest with you, it was like looking into pure depravity. I mean, honestly….how in the world could you ever do something to such a precious child? I think abortion is the most vile thing that we, as Americans, could potentially ever support. I’m on a rampage, honestly, just to expose it to the world because it shouldn’t be supported like this.”
Hurley described the condition of some of the babies and alleged that there is “overwhelming evidence, prima facie evidence of infanticide and that some of these babies have been born alive.” PAAU said it believes the babies could have been aborted in violation of the Partial Birth Abortion Act as well as the Born Alive Infants Protection Act.
“One of the babies was still in its amniotic sack. So the question is, and especially from a medical perspective, how in the world do you kill a baby and have it not come out alive, and it still be completely intact in an undisturbed amniotic sac?” Hurley added. “It’s not possible.”
Early media reports indicated the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department went to Handy’s home to investigate a tip about “potential bio-hazard material” before the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner ultimately collected the children’s remains. Soon after, Handy and several other PAAU group members were charged for an unrelated incident. According to the far-left New York Times, Handy is one of several PAAU group members who is facing charges for “directing eight other people who used their bodies, furniture, chains and ropes” to block the doors of the Washington Surgi-Clinic on October 22, 2020. That case is still ongoing.
Contrary to pro-life activists’ findings, Executive Assistant Chief of Police Ashan M. Benedict said in a news conference after the discovery that the babies “were aborted in accordance with D.C. law, so we are not investigating this incident along those lines.”
“There doesn’t seem to be anything criminal in nature right now about that, except for how they got into this house,” Benedict said. “So we’ll continue to look at that.”
News of PAAU’s horrific discovery made its way to Congress. On April 5, 2022, more than 20 members of Congress sent a letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s (D) office, as well as the D.C. metro police, demanding an autopsy and a full investigation into the deaths of the five babies who were allegedly aborted by Santangelo at the Washington Surgi-Center.
Bowser responded to the letter by singling out PAAU activist Lauren Handy and calling her actions “extremist anti-abortion activity.”
“The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is in consultation with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia on both matters,” Bowser said at the time, adding that both the October 2020 incident and Handy’s involvement in finding the babies’ bodies are “potentially, serious violations of federal law.”
Breitbart News did not receive a response to a request for comments this week from the medical examiner’s office or the mayor’s office. DCPD told Breitbart News on Tuesday that the deaths of the five late-term aborted babies are part of “an open investigation.”
“We do not have any additional information to provide at this time,” the department said via email.
Even though many lawmakers have brought attention to the deaths of the five babies, Hurley and PAAU are calling for Republicans to hold a congressional hearing.
“We need a congressional hearing on this matter. This should not be happening,” Hurley said. “And the fact that this could happen behind closed doors — this is a random box that [they] happened to find. I mean, I was outside of Margaret Sanger Planned Parenthood in New York. That day alone, they unloaded 12 boxes into the truck….it just begs the question: how many of these situations are happening like this, behind closed doors, and nobody is ever seeing — and even when they do see it, they’re covering it up?”
On Tuesday, Bukovinac told Breitbart News over the phone that PAAU has been “lobbying full time” in the House and visiting many members of Congress asking for a hearing.
“We have specifically been in talks with Rep. Chip Roy’s (R-TX) office. I have spoken with some other high-profile pro-life leaders who have agreed to help spearhead a coalition letter and some further meetings with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) on this issue,” she said. Breitbart News reached out to the offices of those congressmen for comment and confirmation but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Bukovinac emphasized that lawmakers should not “let this moment go” and the chance to uncover the atrocities of late-term abortion.
“From our perspective, this is the pathway to a national ban. How can we possibly move forward with banning abortion at any stage in pregnancy if we’re not at least showing the American people exactly what happened to these victims,” she said. “And this is the most significant discovery of fetal remains in our generation. If we let this moment go, if we let it go too long without addressing it, then we’re missing our best opportunity to at least end abortion in elective cases beyond viability.”
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Matt Perdie / Breitbart NewsKatherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on Twitter @thekat_hamilton.
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