Editor’s Note, April 13, 2022: This article contains graphic descriptions of aborted fetuses that some readers may find upsetting.
Three medical doctors with decades of combined experience say they have major concerns about the condition of the aborted babies recovered outside a D.C. clinic and believe a crime may have been committed.
The doctors, speaking in a video released by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, say the age of the fetuses and the potential actions that caused their deaths indicate that the clinic may have conducted a partial-birth abortion, which is illegal under federal law.
All total, the three doctors in the video have more than 70 years of experience in the field.
Kathi Aultman, who has more than 30-years of experience as an OGBYN and once performed abortions, called the pictures "deeply disturbing."
The doctors were reacting to photos of five late-term aborted babies that were recovered by members of the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) from a medical waste box.
"I was shocked when I saw the photographs of these children that were aborted at very late gestational ages," said Ingrid Skop, an OGBYN with more than 20 years of experience. She serves as director of medical affairs of the Charlotte Lozier Institute. "One baby, in particular, caused me great concern. He was very large – he had to be held by two hands in the photographs. I would estimate that he was about 30 weeks gestation.
"In my professional opinion," Skop said, "there are grave concerns that these babies may have been killed by illegal abortion. The female may have died by an intact dilation and evacuation or partial-birth abortion."
Partial-birth abortion is a procedure in which the doctor partially delivers a late-term baby, feet first, until only the head remains in the birth canal. The doctor then suctions out the brain, allowing for a dead delivery.
"After examining the photograph and videotape of these abortion victims, I was concerned about the baby girl," Aultman said. "She was totally intact except for her head which had an opening at the back where apparently the brains were evacuated. This would be consistent with a partial-birth abortion."
Skop said a male boy in the pictures "had clamp marks on his leg suggesting that they started trying to do a partial-birth abortion, but the cervix may have been over-dilated so that he was delivered intact without having to decompress the head."
Robin Pierucci, a NICU medical doctor with 20-plus years of experience, agreed, saying babies at that age feel pain.
"I have been smacked by tiny 22-week hands when we do something to them that hurts," Pierucci said. "Part of what was so traumatizing for me when I saw the pictures of the babies born in D.C. is knowing that babies hurt. The markings that were on them – those were not consistent with anything I have ever seen in years of doing this from a delivery – even a dramatic delivery. ... Those markings had to have hurt them. And it's hard to look at."
The doctors believe a "forensic autopsy by the medical examiner is warranted," according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute.
Hadley Arkes, a professor emeritus at Amherst College, said he is concerned the issue may be ignored by D.C. officials.
"The laws established a right of babies to be spared the awful partial-birth abortion or to be killed even if they survived – but those rights can be rendered a nullity if the local authorities are determined to look the other way, and do nothing to enforce the laws," Arkes told the National Catholic Register.
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Photo courtesy: ©Fallon Michael/Unsplash
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
