Sen. Hawley, lawmakers ask DOJ to investigate years-old deaths of five babies in possible partial-birth abortion

More than 50 Republican lawmakers asked the Department of Justice to investigate the deaths of five near full-term babies, discovered outside an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C., in 2022, according to a letter sent Tuesday to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche.

“We cannot undo the grievous, barbaric acts that killed these children in their most vulnerable stage, but we equally cannot allow such lawlessness and inhumanity to evade our justice system any longer,” the letter states.

The lawmakers sent the letter ahead of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s expected vote on Blanche’s AG nomination at the end of the month. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, who are members of the Judiciary Committee, also signed the letter, according to Life News.

“These babies were near term. Their bodies almost entirely fully formed, and they were horrifically killed, aborted, and then stuffed into dumpsters,” Hawley told Heartlander News in an interview Thursday. “We need to find out who did this. There needs to be justice for them, and there needs to be a stop to this kind of activity.”

In 2022, the Metropolitan Police Department recovered the bodies of five babies outside the Washington Surgi-Clinic, where they were allegedly aborted by late-term abortionist Dr. Cesare Santangelo, according to The Daily Wire.

Doctors estimated one of the babies, a boy, was roughly 28-to-32-weeks gestation, and another baby girl appeared to be the size of a newborn, Life News reports.

 “If this baby girl was alive when the abortionist made these lacerations, then her death directly violated the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act of 2003, which criminalizes the partial delivery of a living child for the purpose of performing an overt act that intentionally takes the life of the child,” medical experts said, per The Daily Wire.

The Biden DOJ didn’t investigate the crime, and lawmakers are now asking Blanche to conduct a proper investigation, including performing autopsies and preserving evidence. They also request a proper burial for the remains, still held by the D.C. Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, according to Life News.

In a separate letter this week, Hawley also asked Blanche to investigate the operations and networks of an online company that ships chemical abortion pills into every state in America, as Heartlander News reported.

Both letters come after taxpayer dollars returned to fund Planned Parenthood July 4 because the 2025-2026 Congressional budget, which stripped the abortion giant of federal funding, ended.

“We know for a fact that outfits like Planned Parenthood are openly violating the law,” Hawley said Thursday. “Not only are they violating the law when it comes to the chemical abortion drug, administering it to folks who have not been prescribed it, sending it into states where it’s banned, but they’re also doing things like I believe carrying out partial-birth abortions that are banned nationwide, and I think that the deaths of these children prove it.”

Blanche appeared before the Judiciary Committee July 15 for his nomination hearing, and pro-life senators asked how he would address the abortion issue, especially the unregulated chemical abortion pill, which “undermines the laws of 20 states,” according to Susan B. Anthony Pro-life.

“Victims of violent crimes and a growing group of survivors harmed by the multimillion-dollar abortion drug industry are crying out for justice,” SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a statement.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on Blanche’s nomination July 30.