Serena Dyksen has two grown children, but it's the one she never met that haunts her most. Wednesday, during a gloomy day in South Bend, she said goodbye to that baby -- the one she aborted. Like a lot of women in the Southlawn Cemetery, she looked at the plot and grieved. "Coming here today," she admitted, "was just another layer of the healing process. As post-abortive men and women, sometimes we think we shouldn't mourn the loss of our children -- but it was the loss of life... We don't want to forget what happened."
The headstone, donated by a local funeral home, said simply, "In memory of the 2,411 precious unborn buried here on Feburary 12, 2020." For a lot of families, it was closure they'd been waiting for since last September, when an unsuspecting wife stumbled on hundreds of tiny bodies that her abortionist husband had stashed on their property. Ulrich Klopfer had just died, and his family had no idea about the grisly trophies he'd left behind.
Like the abortionist's wife, the family attorney couldn't begin to imagine what would drive anyone to stack their garage from "floor to ceiling" with thousands of decomposing bodies from his killing business. From Kevin Bolger's interview --"You could barely walk in there" -- to the stomach-turning realities, the details are too gruesome to ignore. Unless you're Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Klopfer operated several clinics in Indiana -- one of the most controversial in Buttigieg's South Bend. It was eventually closed -- no thanks to Mayor Pete, who's spent years shielding rundown abortion centers from regulation. When the Indiana State Department refused to give one of the town's other clinics, Whole Women's Health of South Bend, a license because it lacked "reputable and responsible character," this candidate for president defended them.
"There's no question that what happened here is disturbing," Mayor Pete admitted when the news broke. But what, exactly, does he find disturbing? As one of the many candidates who's gone to bat for Planned Parenthood, isn't this just part of the collateral damage liberals are willing to accept as part of their abortion radicalism? After all, he and the rest of the Democratic hopefuls seem to have no problem with America's biggest abortion mogul trafficking in baby body parts. So which is more shocking -- stashing the bodies or selling them?
Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill (R) gave a moving speech at the graveside service, telling those gathered, "Today, we finally memorialize the 2,411 unborn babies whose remains were senselessly hoarded by Dr. Ulrich Klopfer after he performed the abortions from 2000 to 2003," he said. "These babies deserved better than a cold, dark garage or the trunk of a car... Each of these 2,411 was a life -- a life that was terminated -- and each deserves to be secure in a final resting place, with dignity and respect..."
Fortunately, Indiana is one of the few states with laws demanding dignity for the unborn. Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, and Wisconsin are moving forward with their own efforts to ensure that the horror story of South Bend isn't repeated. To understand why these policies are necessary -- or to see if your state has one -- check out FRC's special issue brief and our interactive fetal dignity map.
