Justice for the Five

Ten months after relocating to Washington DC, our founder and her new organization uncovered the bodies of 115 aborted children — some of whom had suffered criminal acts.

After arranging a burial for the youngest ones, Terrisa Bukovinac placed five in the possession of the city police in hopes of autopsies and a full investigation.

March 25, 2024 marked two years since then. These babies deserve justice and they need your help to get it. For documentation, please visit Jfor5.com today.


EMERGENCY UPDATE | February 5, 2024

Scandal hit DC this evening. According to Terrisa’s lawyer, the Medical Examiner’s Office (the officials in possession of the bodies) were told by the Department of Justice to incinerate them!

“The medical examiner’s office accordingly tells me that if we don’t have an order to the contrary, by the end of this week, a court order, they will dispose of the babies,' says attorney Martin Cannon."

Source: DAILY SIGNAL EXCLUSIVE: DOJ Advised DC Medical Examiner to Dispose of Aborted Baby Bodies, Lawyer Says.

Contact your reps in Congress to put a stop to this! A sample letter is included below.

Here are the three main asks:

1. Issue letters to the DC Medical Examiner and Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding the preservation of the remains of the babies.

2. Subpoena the remains of the babies and take possession of them through the House Oversight committee.

3. Hold hearings for the babies in the Judiciary committee and hold their killer, Cesare Santangelo, accountable for their murders.


UPDATE | February 7, 2024

45 Members of Congress signed on to a letter today addressed to the Attorney General. Please continue with the instructions below, as additional coalition letters will only help. And please dial your reps afterward to ensure that their letters will be followed up with Congressional Hearings.


UPDATE | February 9, 2024

DC has confirmed that it will stand down from incinerating their bodies! Although the efforts of the pro-life community kept their remains from being destroyed, our work isn’t over. We must continue calling on all of our representatives in Congress to join this effort alongside us. Please consider writing a modified version of the letter below.

Here are our main asks:

1. Subpoena the remains of the babies from the DC Medical Examiner and take possession of them through the House Oversight committee.

2. Schedule hearings in the Judiciary committee to hold their killer accountable for his crimes.

February 5th Letter

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Send this to your three Congressional reps in one click with Democracy.io

Message Text:

Dear Honorable Congressperson,

My name is [NAME] and I am writing to you today with great urgency about five D.C. Babies — Harriet, Phoenix, Christopher X, Ángel, and Holly. The Biden-Harris Administration's Department of Justice has instructed the Washington D.C. Medical Examiner's Office, where their bodies currently reside, to incinerate their remains. They are nearly full-term infants who were being preserved as evidence of infanticide. Your action is needed by the end of this week to stop them from being destroyed.

I urge you to issue letters to the DC Medical Examiner and AG Merrick Garland demanding the preservation of the remains. My second urgent request is for Congress to subpoena the remains of these babies and take possession of them through the House Oversight committee. Finally, these babies need hearings in the Judiciary committee. Their killer needs to be held accountable and these children deserve to have their day in court.

If you are unaware of their story, it began on March 25th 2022 when two activists from the Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising intercepted a box of medical waste outside of a DC abortion business, Washington Surgi Center. Assuming there were aborted fetal remains inside the box, their goal was to give them a funeral and burial. Upon opening the box, they found 115 sets of remains. 110 were in the first trimester. The remaining five ranged in age from the late second trimester (27+ weeks) to 33 weeks. The activists tried seeking out a private pathologist to give the five oldest ones an autopsy, and had a burial for the others. They also had a lawyer contact the Homicide Branch of the Metropolitan Police Department on March 29th so they could come and collect the five bodies. (1)

Contrary to the common narrative in America regarding the notion of later abortion only occurring in cases of fatal fetal abnormalities or maternal health complications, abortion advocates themselves have published about the availability and provision of late abortion without medical necessity. None of these five bodies appeared to have any life-limiting conditions, according to medical experts who examined the video footage and photos. Tragically, the child named Harriet shows signs of death through Partial-Birth Abortion. Christopher X and Phoenix both appear to have been born-alive and left to die. Not only did these abortions violate the Partial-Birth Abortion Act and Born Alive Infant Protection Act — they were done past the point of viability, which with present medical technology and advances in healthcare occurs as early as 23 weeks gestation. 

Because of the horrifying likelihood of infanticide, an investigation was called to determine the causes of death of these children. In the nearly two years since, no justice has been taken and no autopsy was ever performed. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has ignored the case, even though an investigation would confirm or deny PAAU’s claims once and for all. There remains a substantial risk the use of these illegal abortion methods will continue at these clinics. The sudden call for the bodies of these infants to be incarcerated, and the continued refusal to investigate the deaths of these children, is deeply concerning.

This instance of infanticide was not the first — though we hope it will be the last — of its kind. An abortion provider in Pennsylvania, Kermit Gosnell, was tried and convicted of these very crimes. The grand jury indicated that government inaction contributed to his reign of terror, saying, “We think the reason no one acted is because the women in question were poor and of color, because the victims were infants without identities, and because the subject was the political football of abortion.” They also stated, “Let us say right up front that we realize this case will be used by those on both sides of the abortion debate. We ourselves cover a spectrum of personal beliefs about the morality of abortion. For us as a criminal grand jury, however, the case is not about that controversy; it is about disregard of the law and disdain for the lives and health of mothers and infants. We find common ground in exposing what happened here, and in recommending measures to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.” (2)

Please, do not disregard the laws of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and the Partial-Birth Abortion Act. Join a coalition letter to mandate that the Medical Examiner keep the remains of the five babies intact, request for Congress to subpoena the remains of these babies and take them into possession, and give these babies their day in court. Please, demand Justice for the Five.

For life, peace, and justice,

[NAME]

References:

  1. https://paaunow.org/justiceforthefive/thestory

  2. https://web.archive.org/web/20110124111410/http://www.phila.gov/districtattorney/pdfs/grandjurywomensmedical.pdf