Last week, Senator Mike Braun (R-Ind.) introduced the Dignity for Aborted Children Act (S. 2590). This legislation would require a proper burial or cremation for every child who dies from an abortion.
In September, police found the remains of over 2,000 aborted babies in abortion doctor Ulrich “George” Klopfer’s Illinois home. Unfortunately, Illinois and numerous other states have no laws against such practices, and an Indiana statute to require humane treatment of aborted bodies was recently challenged, albeit unsuccessfully, at the Supreme Court. It is unacceptable that Illinois and many other states have no law against such a horrific practice, underscoring the importance of Sen. Braun’s bill.
Melanie Israel, Research Associate in the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation, writes:
In recent years, a number of states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Texas have enacted fetal burial laws, which recognize that the bodies of pre-born children are, in fact, human and should be treated accordingly—not disposed of along with used needles, surgical products, and animal carcasses (or in the case of Klopfer, kept preserved in the abortionist’s home).
Less than four months ago, the Supreme Court upheld an Indiana law that requires proper burial of abortion victims. It appears that Klopfer, whose license was suspended in 2016, had ceased committing abortions before that requirement went into effect.
It is heartbreaking that even in death, after having suffered the violence of abortion, the victims are so often not treated with dignity and care.
Lawmakers around the country should follow the example of Indiana and other states and ensure, at the very least, the humane treatment of the remains of unborn children whose lives were cut short by abortion.
Pro-abortion legislators have become so desensitized to the cruelties of abortion that earlier this year, 44 senators voted against requiring medical practitioners to give medical care to babies born alive during an abortion. Both the Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act and Senator Braun’s Dignity for Aborted Children Act address a critical failure in current law to respect the sanctity of human life.
Heritage Action applauds Senator Braun for leading on this issue and shining a light on the culture of dehumanization that surrounds abortion.