EL PASO, Texas, April 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Police in El Paso, Texas say they will not investigate an abortion clinic after the dismembered remains of an aborted baby were found were in the clinic’s parking lot.
Live Action reported that one of its investigators, Gaby Federico, had been tipped off by a man living next door to the Hilltop Family Planning Clinic that his dog had been sniffing around in the clinic’s parking lot and discovered the exposed fetal remains.
On Good Friday, Federico arrived at 9:15 am. at the man’s behest to observe the remains, which included bloody fetal tissue, two dismembered legs with feet (the size of a dime) and a severed hand. (WARNING: graphic pictures available here, here, and here.)
Police arrived with a medical examiner a couple hours later, cordoned off the area as a crime scene, and interviewed Hilltop employees.
Live Action says that former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson estimated, based on the photographs, that the dismembered child’s age was between 12 -14 weeks, and his death was due to a “vacuum aspiration” abortion.
Johnson was drawing on her previous experience as a Planned Parenthood “products of conception technician,” whose responsibilities involved reassembling the body parts of unborn children after abortions to make sure nothing was missing.
Police differed slightly in their estimation, telling local KFOX-14 that the unborn child was between 9 – 12 weeks gestation.
Hilltop offers abortion up to 15 weeks, and since abortion is legal, police say they will not investigate further.
Any concerns about the improper disposal of human remains must instead be passed along to the Texas Health Department. Clinic staff have denied any wrongdoing or responsibility.
The Catholic Bishop of El Paso, Armando Achoa, had asked police for the baby’s remains for a proper funeral and burial, but was refused.
Instead, the remains were turned over to Health Department officials, who told local news outlets that they disposed of the child’s remains “properly.”
Federico said it was “horrible” to observe aborted unborn children “be disposed of in such an inhuman way” “This shouldn’t ever happen, in El Paso or anywhere,” Federico said, according to Live Action.
“When dead babies start turning up in the clinic parking lot, no further proof is needed of what abortion is. These clinics need to be shut down.”