#JusticeForTheFive
#JusticeForTheFive
CONTENT WARNING
The following content includes photos & descriptions of abortion victims, for the purpose of remembering these victims and educating the public. This content may be triggering, especially to those who have experienced pregnancy loss, and those with medical-related trauma.
In Memoriam
Harriet
Christopher X
Ángel
Holly
Phoenix
In late March 2022, I arrived at the Washington Surgi-Center, a late-term abortion center in Washington, DC. I planned to go into the abortion center and see if there were any patients who might just need some financial support. Four months prior at this location I’d met an expecting mom in the waiting room who had scheduled an abortion because she was facing eviction. I helped connect her with the $4,000 she needed and she chose life for her baby, so I was optimistic that this day might go similarly.
But when my colleague and I arrived at the center I saw a medical waste truck parked outside. I approached the driver who was loading boxes onto his truck and asked, “Do you know what’s in these boxes?”. When he indicated he did not, I told him, “Dead babies”. I then asked him: “Would you get in trouble if we took one of these boxes?” He replied, “What would you do with them?” My colleague said, “We’ll give them a funeral and a burial”. And so he consented.
We took the box to a safe place and - after speaking to some experts about how to safely handle fetal remains - we opened the box. Inside were the bodies of 115 aborted babies. Most of them were pulverized first trimester abortion victims. You could still see their tiny rib cages, their spines snapped in half, their smashed heads, and dismembered limbs, hands, & feet.
Five of them were in their third trimester, three of whom appeared to be victims of federal crimes. One girl we named Harriet looked to be around 30 weeks. She was completely intact but the back of her neck had been cut and her brain was suctioned out. She had one eye open, as if looking to us for justice.
Another baby, Christopher X - seemingly also around 30-32 weeks - was completely whole, along with Phoenix, who was still encased in their amniotic sac. The other three babies were large enough to have survived outside of the womb and had their torsos ripped in half and their heads separated from their bodies.
We wept. Nothing could have possibly prepared me for that moment. I have held the victims of an exploitative capitalist system and a billion dollar killing industry. There’s no coming back.
These babies were killed by Cesare Santangelo also known as “The Butcher of DC”. Over the past two decades, his inhumane medical practices have harmed parents and children alike, leading to the death of at least one pregnant patient and countless pre-born children. He has been found in the past to violate local, state, and federal medical standards, but has been protected by the DC Board of Health because he performs late-term abortions.
The discovery gave rise to the hashtag #JusticeForTheFive, referencing the five post-viability babies who still remain in the hands of the Washington DC Chief Medical Examiner. Over a year later, we still seek justice for these babies: for Harriet, Christopher X, Holly, Ángel, and Phoenix. We still seek to protect pregnant people and their loved ones from the barbaric practices of Cesare Santangelo. And we fight for the day when no one will suffer or die from abortion violence.