The need for limits on abortion and how it is handled by those who make a living from it will be front and center in the coming months as the Supreme Court has picked up a case out of Louisiana. But for a picture worth 2,246 words on why abortion limits are long overdue, consider the ugly surprise that the heirs of now-deceased abortionist Ulrich George Klopfer found when the preserved bodies of more than 2,000 aborted infants were discovered in his Illinois garage and in his car.
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill recently discussed the next steps in respectfully handling the preserved bodies of these aborted babies, some of them now more than two decades old, as well as addressing thousands of abandoned patient records that were discovered when officials investigated other Klopfer properties, looking to see if other bodies had been left behind. Klopfer had moved the bodies of the infants in more than 70 boxes from Indiana to his home in Illinois.
During his news conference, Hill said that the infant remains, now with an Indiana coroner, would be “disposed of with dignity” as Indiana law requires.
Indiana was where Klopfer worked and gathered the fetal remains, including in South Bend, home of Mayor Pete Buttigieg. The mayor and Democratic presidential candidate intervened to block a pro-life pregnancy care center that would help pregnant women, yet endorsed opening an abortion business to be run by Klopfer’s associate. The facility that Mayor Pete championed ultimately opened without a license, after intervention by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Klopfer’s personal legal issues were numerous, which isn’t surprising considering he was “likely Indiana’s most prolific abortion doctor in history with numbers going into the tens of thousands of procedures in multiple counties over several decades.”
The Associated Press reported that “Indiana’s Medical Licensing Board suspended Klopfer’s medical license in 2016 after finding numerous violations, including a failure to ensure that qualified staff was present when patients received or recovered from medications given before and during abortions.” He had also failed to report abortions on two girls under 14 years of age.
At the hearing in which he lost his license, Klopfer recounted the story of a 10-year-old rape victim who had been attacked by her uncle. Rather than notify police, he sent the child home with her parents. It was a story which, according to local news reports, “struck a nerve with members of the board” of Indiana Medical Licensing.
In 2016, as if anticipating the gruesome revelations about Klopfer’s garage, the state of Indiana passed a law mandating that the broken bodies of aborted infants be handled humanely and either buried or cremated. This is an effort that even the Supreme Court got behind — in May, the justices allowed Indiana’s law to go into effect without review.
This is an idea with national implications, and Klopfer’s story makes it that much more likely to happen. Indiana’s two U.S. senators, Republicans Todd Young and Mike Braun, have since filed the “Dignity for Aborted Children Act,” requiring all abortionists to handle the remains of abortion infants with burial or cremation or face up to five years in prison.
The need for laws regulating the abortion industry becomes clearer every day. Abortionists should not be allowed to hide infant bodies in their garages, throw them into landfills, or burn them for fuel.
Also unacceptable is altering abortion methods to force a live birth for the purpose of harvesting infant tissue for research, as has been detailed during the David Daleiden trial involving the undercover videos taken by the Center for Medical Progress of Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue sales. Considering an estimation of more than 60 million abortions since 1973, the humane treatment of human remains needs to concern us all.
What was discovered in Klopfer’s garage is more evidence that the abortion industry must be held accountable for its business practices and what happens to women and children inside their facilities.
Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, Explicitly Pro-Life.
