WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) – On Monday, Republican U.S. Rep. Riley Moore of West Virginia urged U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate fetal remains discarded years ago by an abortion facility in the nation’s capital for possible cases of infanticide that so far have evaded justice.
In 2022, the group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) discovered the remains of five aborted babies in a crate outside Washington-Surgi Center in D.C., operated by notorious late-term abortionist Cesare Santangelo. While the authorities refused to investigate, an initial medical examination indicated that some of them died by infanticide and partial-birth abortion, both of which are illegal.
But instead of investigating, the federal government took action against the pro-lifers who exposed them. In August 2022, a D.C. jury found the pro-life activists guilty of conspiracy against rights and violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for blocking access to Washington Surgi-Clinic in October 2020. President Donald Trump pardoned them and other pro-life activists during his first week back in office. Yet the possible crimes they uncovered have so far evaded justice.
During Monday’s testimony on Capitol Hill, Bondi took questions from Moore, who noted that “public reporting suggests that President Biden’s DOJ directed the DC chief medical examiner to destroy the remains of the children without performing an autopsy, which the CME appears not to have done yet.” He asked Bondi, “Will you commit to working with me and this committee to conduct a full and fair investigation into the deaths of these children to ensure justice is served for the D.C. five?”
Bondi said she could not discuss specifics in public but said the case remained an “ongoing investigation.”
Today, I demanded accountability for the D.C. Five – who were all victims of partial birth abortion.
My conversation with @AGPamBondi ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/Dwr1SpIu9K
— Rep. Riley M. Moore (@RepRileyMoore) June 23, 2025
Despite being branded a myth by the abortion lobby, infanticide is a very real danger. “Although the United States fails to record reliable data on abortion survivors, we have estimated, through Canadian government extrapolations, that 1,734 infants are born alive after a failed abortion procedure every year in the United States,” says the Abortion Survivors Network. “In other words, about 2 out of every 1,000 abortions result in a live birth. After 49.5 years of Roe v Wade, 85,817 babies lived through an abortion procedure.”
Partial-birth abortion and infanticide are illegal under federal law, but the federal Born-Alive Infants Protection Act of 2002 “did not directly create civil or criminal penalties,” as admitted by a 2019 PolitiFact article (which nevertheless gave Trump a “false” rating on the subject, which LifeSiteNews dissected at the time). That law was “toothless and purely symbolic,” the article quoted University of Massachusetts law professor and Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund member Dwight Duncan as saying.
To remedy the situation, Republicans in Congress have repeatedly put forth the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act (BAASPA), which would mandate that abortion-surviving newborns be shown the “same degree of professional skill, care, and diligence” as would be given following an intended birth and then be “immediately transported and admitted to a hospital.” Violating physicians would face up to five years in prison, and those who go beyond willful negligence and commit an “overt act” to kill the newborn would be punished under the existing federal murder statute. Yet Democrats in Congress have consistently voted against the bill.
