The remains of the 2,411 unborn infants found in Illinois following the death of abortionist Ulrich Klopfer have been laid to rest.
Klopfer, who died last September, operated three abortion clinics in South Bend, Indiana, until his license was suspended in 2015. After his death last year, his family began going through his belongings when they made an unsettling discovery: Klopfer had preserved the fetuses of more than 2,400 unborn babies, the majority of whom he kept in the garage of his home, located just 45 miles from Chicago. Others were found in the trunk of his vehicle.
Seeking to honor the infant lives horrifically lost and unceremoniously maintained, Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill held a mass burial service at a cemetery in South Bend on Wednesday.
Their lives were memorialized with a shared headstone:
The unborn children were kept together, he said, because each of them became inseparably “connected by their common fate,” according to CNN.
“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,” Hill said during the service. “These babies deserved better than a cold, dark garage or the trunk of a car.”
When the infants’ remains were first discovered, they were inside small, sealed plastic bags filled with a chemical intended to preserve the bodies. The bags were scattered throughout the garage, mixed up with other storage boxes.
Additionally, investigators at Klopfer’s home found abandoned medical records tied to the doctor’s abortion clinics in South Bend.
Klopfer was described by one local newspaper, The Journal Gazette, as “Indiana’s most prolific abortion doctor,” noting his record of performing tens of thousands of abortion procedures over the course of his career.