2022 fetal remains incident
On March 30, 2022, Washington DC police found the remains of 5 fetuses at the apartment of Lauren Handy, an anti-abortion activist associated with Bukovinac. [6] [7]
Bukovinac and Handy stated that they were among 115 fetuses they had obtained on March 25, 2022 from a medical waste transportation company outside of the Washington Surgi-Clinic. According to Bukovinac, the women went to the clinic to perform what they call a “pink rose rescue” when they noticed a Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services truck outside. The women say they approached the driver of the truck and told him the packages he was transporting might contain fetal remains, and asked if he could hand over one of the boxes. The driver purportedly complied when they informed him they would give the remains "a proper burial and a funeral". Curtis Bay Medical Waste Services has refuted this claim, stating it does not transport fetal remains by company policy and has also denied that any package was ever handed over. [7]
Bukovinac and Handy alleged that inside the box were 110 fetal remains that were the result of first trimester abortions, which were buried in a private cemetery with the help of a Catholic priest, [8] along with the 5 others police had discovered in Handy's apartment. Bukovinac and Handy believed these 5 to be the result of third trimester partial-birth abortions, a procedure outlawed in 2003 by the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. The activists said that their lawyer had asked the police to retrieve the remaining fetuses from Handy's home as evidence of violation of federal law. [9] [10]
While Bukovinac and Handy have called for a full autopsy of the fetuses, the D.C. Medical Examiner’s Office has said the five fetuses recovered from Handy’s home all appear to have been aborted in accordance with D.C. law, and that while there were no plans to conduct an autopsy, an inquiry was ongoing as to the origin of the remains and how they were obtained. [7] [11]
