Just months after thousands of aborted babies were found in boxes in an Indiana abortionist’s garage, Democrats in the U.S. Senate blocked legislation that could have prevented such atrocities from happening in the future.
On Wednesday, U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, a pro-life Republican from Indiana, asked the Senate for unanimous consent on his Dignity for Aborted Children Act, which would require abortion facilities to bury or cremate the remains of aborted babies, according to National Review.
Though the bill does not prohibit abortions, Democrat U.S. Sen. Patty Murray blocked it, claiming it would “gut reproductive rights,” the report states.
Braun introduced the bill in September after his state was rocked by a horrific discovery. Authorities found the remains of 2,411 aborted babies stored in boxes in abortionist Ulrich Klopfer’s garage and vehicle.
No one knows why Klopfer, who died shortly before the gruesome discovery, kept the aborted babies on his property. Many of his former patients were re-traumatized by the news, including one woman who said she was forced to abort her unborn child. State authorities said they could not identify the babies individually because of “the poor condition of the fetal remains and unreliable nature of the accompanying records.” Pro-lifers and state authorities held a burial for the babies in February.
“Fetal remains deserve to be treated with respect, not as medical waste,” Braun said Wednesday before asking for unanimous consent on his bill, according to the report.
Murray refused, attacking the legislation as a “harmful bill that will gut reproductive rights and put unnecessary restrictions on medical providers and undermine medical research.”
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But the Dignity for Aborted Children Act does not restrict abortions. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a similar Indiana law that requires aborted babies to be buried or cremated. The court ruled that requiring a proper burial for aborted babies is not an undue burden on women’s access to abortion.
Murray’s suggestion that the law would hurt medical research also is not true. Aborted baby body parts are used in scientific research, but a number of scientific researchers have said they are unnecessary and unsuccessful. What’s more, there are ethical alternatives that scientists can use, such as pluripotent stem cells that do not involve killing an innocent human life.
A number of states have considered or passed burial laws for aborted babies in the past several years. Much of the legislation came in the wake of the Center for Medical Progress investigation, which exposed Planned Parenthood allegedly selling aborted baby body parts to researchers.
Indiana can enforce its law, but Texas state leaders are still fighting against the abortion industry in court to be allowed to enforce theirs.
Authorities are still investigating why Klopfer kept the aborted babies’ remains in his home, though some speculate that they were some kind of sick trophy for the former abortionist. Klopfer aborted unborn babies in Indiana for decades until the state revoked his license in 2016 for failing to report the rape of a 13-year-old patient and numerous other health violations.
States are very limited in their ability to protect unborn babies from abortion under Roe v. Wade. The infamous ruling made America one of only seven countries in the world that allows elective abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. Since it was handed down in 1973, more than 61 million babies have been aborted.
While states fight to pass pro-life laws and defend them in court, these burial/cremation requirements at least provide dignity to aborted babies after their deaths. The legislation also helps to ensure that abortion facilities are not profiting off the sales of aborted baby body parts.
