Thousands of Fetal Remains Found at Home of Former Indiana Abortion Doctor

Dr. Ulrich Klopfer in 2014 in a file photograph. South Bend Tribune via AP

Thousands of medically preserved fetal remains were discovered on the Illinois property of a former Indiana abortion clinic doctor who died recently, officials said.

The Will County, Illinois, Sheriff’s Office said that 2,246 fetal remains were found at the home of Dr. Ulrich Klopfer. Klopfer died on Sept. 3.

An attorney representing his family told authorities that while going through the doctor’s personal property, the remains were found.

There is no evidence that any medical procedures were conducted at the property,” the sheriff’s office said.

Klopfer used to operate a clinic in South Bend, Indiana, called the Women’s Pavilion, but Klopfer’s license was suspended several years ago after he was accused of failing to timely report an abortion on a teen girl, according to Fox59.

Will County, Illinois. Google Maps

An investigation into the matter is ongoing. The family is cooperating, officials said.

The sheriff’s office said the remains were located at “an address in unincorporated Will County.” The local coroner’s office took possession of the remains and is helping with the investigation.

Klopfer operated abortion clinics in Fort Wayne and Gary, Indiana, for many years.

Website Checkmyclinic.org noted that Klopfer’s clinic in South Bend was closed for several health violations.

“Failed to ensure that abortion patients signed consent forms 18 hours in advance of their procedures being performed,” it said, adding that he also “failed to ensure that abortion patients received counseling from a physician, a physician assistant, an advanced practice nurse, or a midwife prior to an abortion being performed.”

Other violations were listed, including one in which he apparently “failed to submit a Terminated Pregnancy Report within three days after performing an abortion on a 13-year-old patient.”

When his license was suspended in 2016, an article in the South Bend Tribune about Klopfer claimed he “is likely Indiana’s most prolific abortion doctor in history, with numbers going into the tens of thousands of procedures in multiple counties over several decades.”

He started performing abortions in 1973 after the procedure was legalized in the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, the article noted.

Other details about the case aren’t clear.

Missouri’s Last Abortion Clinic Stays Open

Missouri’s last remaining abortion clinic in St. Louis lost its license to perform abortions on Friday, June 21, over patient safety concerns. But it will remain open, at least temporarily, under a judge’s order on the same day.

St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer said that Reproductive Health Services (RHS) Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic can for now continue to carry out abortions, at least until he issues a final ruling outlining the next steps. He offered no timetable for that final ruling.

A group of demonstrators gather during a pro-life rally outside the Planned Parenthood Reproductive Health Center in St Louis, Missouri, on June 4, 2019. Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images

Stelzer—an appointee of former Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat—said during a brief hearing on June 21 that a preliminary injunction he previously issued that keeps the clinic open would remain in place until then.

The fate of the St. Louis clinic has drawn national attention because Missouri would become the first state since 1974 without a functioning abortion clinic if it closes. Just one year prior, in 1973, the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion had become effective nationwide.

Epoch Times reporter Mimi Nguyen-Ly contributed to this report.