By Florence Ebebe, with additional agency reports
Wonder and worry has reverberated around a shocked world, since the remains of more than 2,000 fetuses were found at the home of an abortion doctor who died just 10 days ago.
According to monitored media reports, the 2,246 fetal remains were discovered in the home of Dr. Ulrich Klopfer in Will County, Illinois.
The culprit died on September 3 and it was while family members were going through his home that they found the medically preserved fetuses.
An attorney for the family was said to have contacted the coroner’s office on Thursday about the discovery.
It was estimated that he had performed tens of thousands of abortion procedures in multiple Indiana counties for decades, making him ‘likely’ to be the state’s ‘most prolific abortion doctor in history,’ according to the South Bend Tribune.
The 2,246 fetal remains were discovered in the home of Dr. Ulrich Klopfer in Will County, Illinois
There is currently no evidence to suggest abortions were carried out at the property, authorities said.
The doctor had performed abortions at Women’s Pavilion in South Bend, Indiana, until his license was suspended in 2016 for failure to exercise reasonable patient care and violating multiple notice and documentation requirements, according to the South Bend Tribune.
The suspension came after a 2014 Indiana Department of Health review which resulted in Klopfer’s clinic being cited for 27 deficiencies, ABC 57 reported.
When the clinic failed to submit a plan of correction for those problems, the state agency filed a complaint and hearing request to revoke the clinic’s abortion license.
Another review was conducted in June 2015, during which it was found that the clinic wasn’t adhering to the state law that patients needed to give their voluntary and informed consent 18 hours prior to an abortion being performed.
Klopfer was allegedly giving out the abortion medication during the initial consultation, instead.
Klopfer had his medical license suspended in 2016 for failure to exercise reasonable patient care and violating multiple notice and documentation requirements
Following his 2016 hearing, Klopfer, who was 71 at the time, was given a minimum six-month suspension following 12 hours of testimony and thousands of exhibits.
The testimony reportedly indicated that Klopfer had been using the same sort of abortion and sedation procedures that he had used since the 1970s and 1980s.
Klopfer said at the time that he had never had a patient die or go into cardiac arrest in the 43 years that he had been performing abortions.
Despite it not being part of the complaints that were brought against him, Klopfer also spoke about performing an abortion on a 10-year-old girl at an Illinois hospital after she had been raped by her uncle.
Instead of notifying police about the child abuse, however, he allowed her to return home with her parents, who knew about the rape and had refused to prosecute the uncle.
Klopfer was found to have not given pain medications to all women who he performed abortions on, only women under the age of 16 and women who could afford to pay extra for it. And, when women were sedated, there wasn’t anyone on his staff that was qualified to monitor the women, in addition to not following best practices for the administration of drugs and emergency procedures.
Klopfer (in green shirt) was accused of failing to report abortions performed on two 13-year-old girls in the time mandated by the state in 2014, but those charges were dismissed.
Klopfer (in 1994) was said to be Indiana’s ‘most prolific abortion doctor’ and was thought to have performed tens of thousands of abortions since he began doing them in 1973
He was said to have had very few complications during the procedures, though.
The doctor was found guilty of five of the nine charges against him during the hearing.
Among those charges was not reporting abortions performed on two girls under the age of 14 within the state’s required three-day timeline.
Klopfer had previously come under legal scrutiny in March 2014, after a local right to life organization reported to authorities that he had failed to report abortions on girls under the age of 14 in a timely manner.
Instead of three days, it took Klopfer three to four months to file the paperwork, ABC57 reported.
Klopfer 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.’
In addition to having his license suspended, Klopfer was find $3,000. The board said he could petition to have his license reinstated after six months, but that he would need to submit to a long list of evaluations, as well as obtaining continuing medical education credits and child abuse training.
At the time of the hearing, Klopfer was not practicing medicine and had closed his three abortion clinics in Fort Wayne, Gary and South Bend, Illinois, by November 2015. Still, he had indicated that he wanted to reopen clinics when he could.
It’s unclear if Klopfer had his license reinstated, however.
Klopfer first began performing abortions in 1973 following the legalization of abortion by Roe v. Wade, the Journal Gazette reported.
The coroner’s office has since taken possession of the fetuses found on Klopfer’s property and Illinois’ Will County Sheriff, coroner and state’s attorney are conducting an ongoing investigation into the remains, according to the News-Herald.
Klopfer’s family is said to be cooperating with authorities.