Remains of more than 2,000 fetuses found at Illinois home of well-known abortion doctor 10 days after his death
The medically preserved remains of more than than 2,000 fetuses were found at the Illinois home of an abortion doctor who died 10 days ago. The remains of a total of 2,246 fetuses were found in Dr. Ulrich Klopfer's home in Will County, Illinois, after family members went through his home following his death on September 3.
An attorney of the family is supposed to have contacted the county coroner after the discovery was made on Thursday, even though there is no evidence at the time to suggest that Klopfer carried out those abortions at the property.
Klopfer used to perform abortions at the Women's Pavilion in South Bend, Indiana, but that was until 2016 when his license was suspended for failing to provide proper patient care and violating multiple notice and documentation requirements, reports the South Bend Tribune. Earlier a 2014 Indiana Department of Health review cited Klopfer's clinic for 27 deficiencies, reported ABC 57. The clinic reportedly failed to submit a plan for correcting the cited problems, leading the the state agency to request revocation of the clinic's abortion license.
A June 2015 review also found that the clinic was also failing to adhere to the state law in terms of patients giving their voluntary and informed consent 18 hours before the procedure was carried out, as Klopfer was giving out abortion medication during the initial consultation itself. Klopfer, 71 at the time, was given a minimum of six-month suspension following the 2016 hearing, where it was also revealed that he had been using the same abortion and sedation procedures as was used back in the 70s, and 80s.
Klopfer had shared during the hearing that never in those 43 years of his practice had a patient of his died or gone into cardiac arrest during the procedure. He also noted how he had performed an abortion on a 10-year-old girl after she had been raped by her uncle. Even though the incident wasn't listed in the complaints, Klopfer had decided to let the child go home with her parents without informing the police, as the parents did not want to prosecute the uncle.
Other essentials such as providing pain medication to all women who he performed abortions on was also a big deficiency in his practice. He allegedly gave the medications only to women under the age of 16, or those who could afford to pay extra for it. Also when women were sedated during those procedures, there was no one on Klopfer's staff who could monitor those women, in addition to faulty practices for the administration of drugs and emergency procedures.
Despite being said to have had very few complications in his questionable procedures, Klopfer was found guilty of five of the nine charges against him, including the charges of not reporting abortions performed on two girls under the age of 14, within the state's mandated three-day timeline. ABC57 reported that Klopfer took three to four months to file the paperwork. He had said at the time: "Let me put it this way, if there's any question, it's a question about paperwork, it's not a question about any medical malpractice or anything like that."
That and a fine of $3,000 later, Klopfer was told by the board that he could petition to reinstate his license six months later, provided he submitted a long list of evaluations along with obtaining continuing medication education and child abuse training. Three of Klopfer's abortion clinics in Fort Wayne, Gary and South Bend, Illinois, were closed by November 2015, and even though he wasn't practicing at the time of the hearing, he had indicated wanting to reopen those clinics later when he could.
It's unclear if his license was reinstated though.
According to the South Bend Tribune, Klopfer had performed tens of thousands of abortion procedures in several Indiana counties for years and years, which made him 'likely' to be the state's 'most prolific abortion doctor in history,' He first started performing abortions in 1973, right after the legalization of abortion by Roe v. Wade, reports the Journal Gazette.
The fetuses found on his property are currently in the possession of the coroner, who, along with Illinois' Will County Sheriff and the state's attorney, is conducting an ongoing investigation into the remains, reported the News-Herald.
It's believed that Klopfer's family is cooperating with authorities.