CV NEWS FEED // The Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department has launched a formal investigation into a DC abortion clinic and abortionists at the center of the federal case that resulted in the conviction of five pro-life advocates.

The DC Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to the Daily Signal it had launched an investigation into Dr. Cesare Santangelo and his Washington, D.C., abortion clinic. 

Santangelo, a prominent abortion doctor, previously faced an investigation by Live Action, a pro-life advocacy group in 2012.

During the investigation, Live Action sent an undercover reporter into Santangelo’s clinic. The reporter posed as a pregnant mother, meeting with Santangelo about the abortion process. She covertly recorded her conversation with Santangelo, during which he admitted he would violate federal law by not providing life-saving support to a baby born during a failed abortion attempt.

The footage aired in a Live Action documentary showing Santangelo’s admission and explaining that he admitted to violating the Federal Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which states that clinics must provide life-saving measures to babies born alive after an attempted abortion.

“Obviously, you’re here for a certain procedure, and if your pregnancy were—let’s say you went into labor, the membranes ruptured, and you delivered before we got to the termination of the procedure here,” Santangelo said. “Then we would do things. We would not help it.”

When the undercover reporter asked Santangelo if the baby moves after the abortion, once it’s already born, Santangelo responded by saying, “That’s why I try and sever the umbilical cord first, and we wait for that to stop pulsing, and this way the fetus is expired first, so it doesn’t.”

The reporter asked a follow-up, inquiring about what her responsibility would be if the child was born alive. Santangelo responded by saying that the child would not survive. 

Santangelo was recently featured in a high-profile court case. Ten pro-life advocates sat in at Santangelo’s clinic on October 22, 2020, after being inspired by the Live Action video. Five of the defendants were found guilty this week of violating the 1998 FACE Act.

The defense attempted to air the 2012 video as evidence, but the DC district court judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, rejected the request.

The five defendants found guilty await their sentencing in jail. 

The Metropolitan Police Department did not respond to CatholicVote’s request for comment. 

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